In A Nutshell

The portion, BeHa’alotcha (When You Raise the Candles), takes place a year after the reception of the Torah. The people of Israel is getting ready to journey and holds a special ceremony for the inauguration of the altar. The portion details the laws concerning making the offering of Second Passover for those who were far and could take part in Passover.

The portion speaks of the tabernacle, on which there was constantly a cloud. It is an indication to the children of Israel when they must rise and journey, and when they must settle down. The portion also tells of the two silver trumpets that were used to assemble the people at times of war, when making an offerings, on Sabbaths, festivals, and special occasions.

Toward the end of the portion, several events take place that point to the heightening of the ego. The wicked in the nation complain about Moses and the Creator, and a consuming fire is sent to the wicked at the camp’s edge. The rabble, who is a group of proselytes that joined the children of Israel upon their exit from Egypt, complains about their condition, and the Creator showers quails on the camp. Anyone who jumps on the quails voluptuously is put to death. This is why the place is called “the graves of voluptuousness.”

The end of the portion talks about Miriam—Moses’ and Aaron’s sister—slandering Moses. She says to Aaron, “The Creator appeared to me, as well as to you, so why is Moses the leader? Why are we listening only to him?” She is punished for it with leprosy, and the nation waits for seven days until she returns.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

All the events are spiritual states within us. Each person needs to correct him or her self and achieve equivalence of form with the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2). The text speaks only about correction. It is not about having to cross the desert and reach the Jordan River, cross it, and reach the land of Israel. Rather, it is about ascending, as in BeHaalotcha (When You Raise).

Ascending refers to building the soul. Each of us builds his or her soul. We gradually build the soul—called “a portion of God from above” (Job 31:2). One begins the spiritual work, wanting to build oneself and achieve bestowal and love of others, connection with everyone, because by these acts one becomes similar to the Creator, as it is written, “From the love of man to the love of God,”[1] from loving of people to loving the Creator.

We achieve the love in stages, although we hate it because we are the complete opposite of it. These are the stages described in all the portions. To begin with, the Torah speaks only about a person receiving the spark called the “point in the heart.” With that spark we begin to correct ourselves. The Torah describes the way we go until the end of correction, through what is called “in the sight of all Israel” (Deuteronomy 34:12), through the end of the Torah (Pentateuch).

Therefore, when we begin to work and correct ourselves we immediately find all kinds of problems within us. It is written in the portion that a year after all the preparations, when the children of Israel began to move, problems began to arise in the camp. A person begins to find the problems only after all the preparations, when it seems that we are ready for the spiritual ascent. We begin to encounter many obstructions such as thoughts and desires that go against spiritual ascents.

The obstructions that appear are actually revelations of the desires and the thoughts, the mind and the heart we must correct. It is precisely by correcting them that we ascend. Hence, we need not see them as obstructions, but as a means for ascent, a springboard. We can see on ourselves and on groups in Israel and elsewhere in the world that problems begin the moment everything is organized and everyone is ready, eager, and must begin to act in the center of the group, begin to correct the connections. This is when trouble starts. But this is the right way, the only way to ascend.

The problems that appear reveal different desires and layers of desire in us. Our general desire is divided into many layers, so it is no surprise that “people” suddenly appear, meaning those desires within us. The whole of Israel is called Adam. He includes everything, even the nations of the world within us. However, Israel is the desires with which we can advance for the time being, while the nations of the world are kept “frozen” so as to not deal with them.

When we want to go only with desires with which we can go up to spirituality, we discover that even with them it is not that easy. There are desires that have not sanctified themselves, and this is the purpose of Second Passover. All those who did not do it during the exodus from Egypt can now be corrected, so now we sanctify them. “Sanctifying” means that we bring the desires to the quality of bestowal, which is called Kodesh (holiness), bestowal, or love of others.

We should learn how to sort the desires that are ready to be corrected in a person, and those that are not ready. The same goes for thoughts, working in the tent of meeting, and in the tabernacle. These are works of scrutiny and correction.

The work of the sacrifices or the Mitzvot (commandments) connected to the offerings are the most important because they entail instructions how to separate each desire from the rest of the desires, how to process it and understand it, what it is, and how possible or impossible it is to advance with it.

Our only way to advance is by turning our egoistic desires into desires of bestowal and love. There are always problems in this process, such as leprosy or plagues, as described about Miriam or the people who wanted meat. It happens because our desire divides into still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. “Speaking” refers to different kinds of people that the Torah mentions: priest, Levite, and Israel. Yet, we find that there are also strangers, proselytes, mixed multitudes, and kinds that seemingly do not belong to Israel yet joined it.

The sorting and the scrutiny are not done all at once upon the exodus from Egypt, but later, when it turns out that there is more to correct. We need to separate the sanctified part from the rest of our desires, which we temporarily “put on hold.” Some of these desires can be corrected, and through them it is possible to be sanctified and advance. It is possible to bestow with them, to ascend on the ladder. But with some desires it is impossible to do so.

The parts that can already be in bestowal and receive in order to bestow have already awakened. The light shines in them, as it is written, “When you raise the candles” (Numbers 8:2). There are clear signs in the scrutinies, which indicate when to take certain actions. If we are under a cloud, sitting, it is preparation. If the cloud wakes up, the heaviness and scrutinies awaken in us and we can start moving. The whole Torah is only about how to correct the will to receive, which parts, and how it becomes scrutinized.

Questions and Answers

What is Second Passover? Do desires we have not brought out suddenly make a higher discernment and discover that they, too, deserve to come out?

It is not a higher discernment, but a more accurate, finer one. We discover that desires with which we thought we could come out of Egypt and continue toward the reception of the Torah and the land of Israel do not really support bestowal. Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire), and Ysrael (Israel) means YasharEl (straight to God). After taking a few steps forward we discover some “uncleanness” within us that we previously did not notice. Only now that we advanced we discern desires with which we cannot advance, so we sort and correct them.

We sort and correct our desires in stages. It is possible to ruin the desires, to kill them, separate them, or some how mend them, as with the work of the offerings. We divide our desires into still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, and we sort the desires at the level of speaking into priest, Levite, and Israel. We should also remember the mixed multitude, the proselytes, and the nations of the world, the various gentiles that awaken within us.

There are primary desires on the animate level because the soul consists of Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (clothing), and Heichal (house/hall), or Moach (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh), and Or (skin), depending on how we divided. When referring to Moach, Atzamot, Gidin, Bassar, and Or, we cannot correct the Or. The correction of the Or is making parchment out of it, on which to write the book of Torah. The Or is divided into two—the outside, and the Duchsustus (inner part). This is how it achieves correction.

Before that, we correct a Kli (vessel) of Bassar, on the animate degree. This is our main work at the altar. While there are salt, water, and other elements at the altar, the main one is the flesh. This is the Kli by which we correct our will to receive, which is the most important. The flesh is red; its structure is the great will to receive, hence the work of the offerings, as the Torah describes, is primarily in the Kli (vessel) of Bassar (flesh).

Before that, a person does not know or thinks there is a need to perform these corrections. A person understands it only as one advances at each stage, parks at the stops, prepares all the camps, each with its own banner, and each in its place in the division. If we take the entire people of Israel that is divided into camps, tribes, according to location and form, we either advance or stand still. Instead of finding the tent of meeting, all the desires stand around the tent. The Levites, the priests, and the whole camp is only describing the structure of the soul.

Bigger problems surface each time in the camp—whether it is external thoughts and desires that want to join the ranks, tribes along the way that attack them, or people in the desert who have not corrected themselves from their desires into a desire that is entirely YasharEl, which is the land that is full of milk and honey. That is, there are light of Hassadim and light of Hochma, while in the desert everything is dry; there is no water, no light of Hassadim; hence everything is only scrutinies.

There are many “physical” descriptions, such as the cloud going in front of the camp, and when the children of Israel rest, it rests, too.

This is the concealment: we only see our measure of concealment from the revelation of the Creator. If the cloud, meaning concealment, departs from us, we advance. If the concealment descends on us, we lower our heads, sit, and scrutinize. Indeed, most of the forty years in the desert were spent sitting and making scrutinies, only to move a little forward and stop again for scrutiny.

We follow the concealment because we want to accept it, since according to the concealment we discover the process by which we are going.

What is the concealment in relation to us?

Concealment is when a person receives it from the will to receive, when one wants to be in it, as it is written, “wisdom is with the humble” (Proverbs 11:2), or Safra de Tzniuta (Book of Humbleness, part of The Zohar), meaning disclosures. Safra means book (in Aramaic), and a book is disclosure, a Megillah (scroll), from the word Gilui (disclosure). When one hides oneself, agreeing to receive concealment from the Creator, this is when one advances.

True, it contradicts commonsense, since what does it mean to walk in bestowal? It is when a person does not want any disclosure, seemingly rejecting it. That person advances with Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) because we are in the forty years in the desert.

What does it give us?

This is how Malchut rises to Bina. We acquire the qualities Bina’s qualities of bestowal in our Kli of Malchut. With the qualities of bestowal we walk with our eyes shut because we are following the concealment, the cloud, until we reach the entrance to the land of Israel. Upon entering the land of Israel, the light of Hochma begins to appear through the light of Bina acquired during the forty years in the desert. This is when we begin to see.

The land of Israel is a land where the Creator is present, a desire filled by the Creator, when one has already discovered Him. But before that, when Malchut only rises to Bina, one acquires the concealment and consents to work only in bestowal without anything in return.

From where is the strength to walk in such concealment?

The strength is given from above. It is the strength of the light when receiving the quality of bestowal. The whole problem is that spirituality is not like corporeality, where everything is in our hands, in our vessels of reception and this is how we advance. It is not hard to advance this way because this way we remain in the ego. But in spirituality we do not advance egoistically. Rather, we have to receive from above additional strengths, the added desire, a new desire called “a new land,” “a new heaven.” Everything is new. “Through the desert” means that we cannot find any answers in our will to receive, any fulfillment.

So what motivates us? Why do we advance?

The motive comes from beginning to feel that we are following the upper force. It is good to feel it, but only if we are willing to follow the cloud, the concealment, with our eyes shut.

What does it mean to walk “with our eyes shut”?

Walking with our shut means that we do not receive any justification to advance in bestowal, neither in our minds nor in our hearts. Our hands, namely our corporeal, egoistic Kelim (vessels), is where we feel in the heart and understand in the mind. Here we do not feel or understand anything. All we want is the chance to go above these worldly Kelim and rise to another, higher dimension. We exist there in completely different Kelim from the ones we understand and feel.

How do we know that we are even making any progress there?

The cloud, concealment, is showing us the way, but only to the extent that we are willing to make constant sacrifices. That is a person sacrifices parts of the flesh, of the various desires. If a person sacrifices and does not want to engage in them, and is also willing to leave them with no rhyme or reason, as a result of these sacrifices that person will draw closer. Korban (sacrifice/offering) comes from the word Karov (near/close). In this way we draw closer to the quality of the Creator, to pure bestowal, Bina.

What is the meaning of what happens to Miriam the prophetess? She makes a just complaint regarding Moses’ leadership. If a person wants to lead, then why only Moses?

Moses’ quality of Bina is perfect, complete, GAR of Bina. It is not so with any other desire.

How does the Creator speak to Moses, and how did Moses speak to Him?

This is the revelation. In spirituality we have no sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Rather, “Taste and see that the Lord is good” (Psalms 34:9). A person does not taste in the mouth, but in the new Kelim that appear.

Does a person taste beyond the five physical senses?

There are Hochma, Bina, Zeir Anpin, and Malchut, Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey. Hochma is vision, Bina is hearing. Some prophets said, “I saw,” and some said, “I heard.” The Creator spoke to Moses. Moses is the degree of Bina, GAR of Bina, pure, faithful Bina. He was faithful, at the degree of faith. He heard; he was primarily at the degree of hearing, which is the degree of Bina. This is how the Creator appeared to him.

All punishments are corrections. When Miriam is made ill and sits for seven days outside the camp, the whole camp waits for her return, and only then do they advance in the desert. “As they walked” speaks of corrections. The Nukva (female) is a deficiency that stands opposite Moses. She does not speak at the degree of GAR of Bina, as does Moses, but from the degree of VAK of Bina. That is, the whole degree is connected to that hearing. The Creator speaks to everyone; but Moses also knows because he is in the part of Bina where the light of Hochma (wisdom) dresses, in GAR of Bina.

No; this is why Moses is considered the Creator’s house trustee, as it is written, “He is faithful in all My house” (Numbers 12:7).

Miriam is a woman, and almost everywhere in the Torah it is men who lead.

Not quite. Women exist in every stage and every action, but they are not mentioned. For example, Abraham begot Isaac, but he also had daughters.

Where it writes Et (the) in the Torah, does that refer to a female?

Yes, of course. The woman is the primary part of the Torah; she carries the deficiency that the man corrects. The reason why we talk more about men than about women is that the male part is the Masach (screen) that brings Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) that discloses the ZivugdeHakaa (coupling) on the deficiency of the woman. In this portion it is quite clear that without Prophetess Miriam it would not be possible to draw near. In other words, she is at the degree of Bina, the degree of revealing the Creator.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/06/behaalotcha-raise-candles-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/06/behaalotcha-raise-candles-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/Nasso (Take) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/RWbiEBIviPg/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/nasso-take-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-7/#respondSun, 31 May 2020 03:00:52 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=6006Numbers 4:21-7:89 This Week’s Torah Portion | May 31 – Jun 06, 2020 – 8 Sivan – 14 Sivan, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion describes the children of Israel’s preparations to set out on a journey from Mount Sinai to the land of Israel. The bulk of the work revolves around the tabernacle. The census in the […]

In A Nutshell

The portion describes the children of Israel’s preparations to set out on a journey from Mount Sinai to the land of Israel. The bulk of the work revolves around the tabernacle. The census in the tribe of Levi continues, and there is a description of the distribution of duties between the families of Levi, Gershon, Kohat, and Merari. The Creator gives an order to send the impure people outside the camp as preparation for the inauguration of the tabernacle.

Afterward the portion narrates different situations in which the people need the help of the priests and the tabernacle. The incidents are connected to negative acts such as stealing, a person swearing in the name of the Creator in vain and must offer a sacrifice, and a woman who strayed and is suspected of committing adultery and is therefore brought to the priest. There are also positive incidents, such as the story of the hermit, detailing the laws that a person who makes a vow takes upon himself, and the blessing of the priests, the blessing that the priests bless the people.

The end of the portion discusses the gifts of the presidents and the great celebration—the inauguration of the tabernacle. The portion ends with the conclusion of the preparations, when the people of Israel can set out to the land of Israel.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Torah speaks only about our soul and how we should correct it. We do not correct the body because the body is an animal and acts according to its nature. We must reinstate the “portion of God from above” (Job 31:2); this is the soul.

We do it as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[1] because “the light in it reforms.”[2] When we begin to connect to others under the condition, “love your neighbor as yourself,”[3] we find how repelling we find this act. We do not want to see anyone, only use them for our own benefit.

This is our nature, as the Creator said, “I have created the evil inclination.” However, the more we study and try to draw closer to each other, and discover how utterly impossible it is, the more we feel our nature as bad, as ill will, evil inclination. Then we need a means to correct it, and this is the light that reforms.

When we study the wisdom of Kabbalah in the right group, with people who want to acquire the good inclination, the revelation of the Creator, who want to change and improve, then we discover a whole world within us. We find layers, degrees, and various parts. Indeed, the priests, Levites, Israel, and the entire world with its still, vegetative, animate, and speaking are all in our desires, in the evil inclination.

The Torah tells us how, by which context and which order can we begin to transform the evil inclination into a good inclination. This is what we need to do in this world. The Torah teaches us how to use the light that reforms, which parts of the evil inclination should be treated first, and which ones later.

This process is like a doctor telling a patient, “First we will take care of one thing, then the other. If a patient has a heart problem, it is the most urgent issue, even if the patient says, “But the sore in my leg hurts worse.” Here the doctor has to say, “Wait, we’ll get to it, but it is not your most urgent problem.” The same goes for us.

The Torah instructs us how to scrutinize each detail, to correct it, tie all the corrected parts together, how to temporarily part from desires that still cannot be corrected because they are too big so we must hide them for now. We advance toward connection with others in order to discover the Kli (vessel) of the soul, where we discover the upper light, Boreh (Creator), called Bo Re’eh (come see). We discover gradually, one at a time, through cause and effect.

The previous portion talked about dividing man’s desire into tribes, priests, Levites, and Israel. Who are the priests and what is their role in the people? How should the people divide into twelve tribes? Why is it specifically twelve, three lines and HaVaYaH, three times HaVaYaH, which are four letters, making up twelve parts of the will to receive?

Here we are talking about the next stage in the correction of the soul, of a person who wants to correct it, nurture it, since it is a “portion of God from above.” The Creator is utterly good and does good. A person who wants to work with the good inclination instead of with the bad does it by acquiring the good inclination, the form of the Creator. This is why it is called “come see.”

The portion describes how it is done. The tabernacle is something magical and unknown, a special place in our will to receive. There is nothing but the will to receive; the whole of creation is a will to receive, and within our desire is a special place where we are connected with the upper light. We bring our desires there much the same as we go to a doctor. It is called “a healer for the brokenhearted,”[4] and they are corrected there. The tabernacle is the primary, central place, where our desires are corrected.

Questions and Answers

Does each of us do it separately?

Yes, each one must do it. This is why our work is mainly the work of sacrifices. Prior to that we make all the scrutinies: what is kosher (fit/proper/legitimate), how it can be done, and what within us is a Levite, a priest, Israel, nations of the world, Klipot (shells/peels), still, vegetative, animate, or speaking. We need to learn how to sort and arrange our desires. At the end of all the scrutinies, a person brings an offering. The word, Korban (offering/sacrifice) comes from the word Karov (near/close). When one corrects one’s will to receive in the tabernacle, it is where the point of nearing the Creator is found.

It is truly holy work because the priests are the pure quality of bestowal in a person. The high priest is GAR, meaning the “head” of this quality in us. This is the force within us that is called “priest.” This is also what can correct all the layers of the will to receive that are below it. This is why there is elaboration on what to do with parts of the will to receive such as an uncorrected woman or man, or other problems that arise in the process of correction.

Our whole progress on the path of correction is similar to being in the desert. We discover our evil inclination—that it is an entirely egoistic desire, and we cannot elicit any vitality from it. This is why we feel in it as though we are in the desert. Hence, we are all nourished by the light from above, called “manna from heaven”; this is how we advance.

The desert is a short phase in the process. Why did we stay in it for so long? It is written that we could have traversed it in three days, yet it took us forty years. Why?

The three days are what it takes to obtain three lines. Forty years is the participation of Malchut in Bina, which is called the “degree of forty.” It is not forty years; the Torah does not refer to years the way we do. Rather, it is a degree. A person who attains a degree in the will to receive that is called Bina ascends to the degree of the quality of bestowal and is entirely immersed in the desire to bestow. Although the will to receive that has not yet been corrected burns within just as before, that person “freezes” it and restricts it, holding the burning inside. It is as if there is a box about to erupt like a volcano, and one puts the lid on top and remains above it. Such a person controls all of the egoistic desires, and this is called ascending to the degree of Bina and being ready to enter the land of Israel.

Rising above the “volcano” means rising above the great desires, over all the big Kelim (vessels) that we took out of Egypt. Each time we had to discover the bad in the desert, it is considered that we sinned in the desert. Throughout this process of erring and sinning time and again, Moses and Aaron were tending to these matters.

In other words, one discovers all the corrupt thoughts and desires in the mind and in the heart, and is constantly looking for actions and efforts in connecting to the environment, to the group one is in, to the upper light, the Creator. It is done in order to find out how one connects to external elements and brings them closer, and through them is sanctified.

We keep saying that the only thing we need to correct is our connections, yet all that is described here seems to be internal. If we say that preparations are over and we can set out, is this about something that a person did alone?

The person completed the preparations with all the desires, arranged them in order and sorted them, and has already been equipped with one’s arms. Now that a person can set out and discover the new desires that will indicate how to proceed in the desert.

With whom does one proceed?

A person proceeds with one’s own desires that are already prepared for this process, namely the priests, Levites, Israel, tribes, the division that was done in the previous portion. After tending to all of one’s desire, one sets out with them. In other words, a person is now ready to advance toward the land of Israel, Bina, with all the desires that have been “paused.” Now one proceeds with all those desires—the women, children, and all the men.

Even the animals are taken, meaning all the desires, one’s entire inner world. From here one advances entirely toward bestowal, to the quality of Elokim, called Bina.

What is the measure of dependence? For example, if a friend is already there but I am not, does that mean that I am slowing or holding my friend back?

It has nothing to do with friends; it is one’s own inner work. The friends can only help on the outside, evoke the importance of reaching the land of Israel and being in the state of YasharEl (straight to the Creator), where all the desires aim to bestow. Friends can help us increase our desire to correct the entire evil inclination into a good inclination, and they can increase the importance of the goal thus indirectly helping us wake up and muster strength.

Are some of the scrutinies we make done with friends?

All scrutinies are internal. It is inner work, and others should not know the work we are doing.

We all have such desires, hence we discover them. The Torah speaks of what exists within us. It opens up our own interior and explains what we can find inside: desires, qualities, and thoughts. It also explains how we should work with our “self.” We need to bring all these qualities and desires to identify with the Creator, as it is written, “Return, O Israel to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2). It is not referring to us rising “above the moon,” but about spiritual ascension, inner elevation from out own qualities.

My thoughts are also sent to me; is it the Creator who sends them?

Everything is sent to us. The Creator says, “I have created the evil inclination.” We have nothing to worry about; it is “His problem.” All we need to do is ask that the light that reforms will come and turn our evil inclination into a good inclination. This is our entire work, our entire life is for that purpose.

If, for example, I discover within me the quality called a “woman who strayed,” what does it mean that I bring it to a priest? What does the priest do?

It refers to what we sanctify. In this case we sanctify a desire called “a woman who strayed.” A woman who strayed is a desire to receive that does not want to work in order to bestow, but only to receive. It is a desire that wants to draw the light of Hochma (wisdom) from above downward instead of from below upward. In other words, it does not want to work in bestowal and love of others, but for itself. It is an egoistic desire at the degree of a woman.

There is a husband, there is a wife, and there are nations of the world. It is all inside of us. Our desire suddenly appears as one that wants only for itself, as having no intention of ever being close to the Creator, to others, or to bestowal. When we discover we are like that and that this is what delays our progress, we discover it as a woman who strayed.

Assuming someone asks, “What is a woman who commits adultery?” Someone might say that there are male adulterers, too. Moreover, today adultery is very prevalent.

The men and the women in this case are our own desires. You cannot say that men are doing something wrong, or that women are doing something wrong in our world. Everything is in our inner world—the men, as well as the women—they are all our own desires.

A woman carries with her a greater deficiency, while the man is more prone toward Masachim (screens), toward the power to overcome. But in fact, when a person discovers these discernments within, it does not pose a problem as it does in this world. After all, it is about one’s own desires, and it makes no difference what they are called, “woman,” “man,” “priest,” “Levite,” “Israel,” or “nations of the world.” All of them must be arranged by levels and qualities, to see what should be done according to the Torah, called Hora’a (instruction), meaning what should be corrected within me next.

Is there any connection between that and people’s relationships in everyday life?

No connection whatsoever. You might meet a person on the street who seems wicked or foolish, or someone who seems smart, or someone who is a complete righteous, but you cannot really tell about that person’s insides. It could be nothing but an act.

From The Zohar: A Woman Who Strayed

Why should a man bring his wife to a priest and not to a judge? The judge is the best man of the queen, correcting the Malchut for a Zivug with ZA. Hence, the correction of the flaw of the straying woman, which reaches Malchut, belongs to him. …Only the priest is fit for it. It is the quality of Bina, the strong quality of bestowal. Priests have a special character. It is such a powerful and strong desire, and so corrected in order to bestow, that it can add to itself all the small, corrupted desires and correct them … because he is the queen’s best man. Also, all the women in the world are blessed by the Assembly of Israel … while the priest is poised to correct the words of the queen, Malchut, and look into all that she needs. This is why only the priest is worthy of it, and none other.

Zoharfor All, Nasso (Take), item 61

We talked about the strength of the priest, but this portion also mentions hermits and even rules about them. What is a hermit?

A hermit is anyone who limits him or herself. If a person who weighs 300lb (136 kg) stops eating something, does that make that person a hermit? Likewise, when we see that we cannot work with the revelation of the Creator, with the great pleasures being revealed, and we might take everything for ourselves and become egoists once more, we limit ourselves and do not draw these pleasures. In the wisdom of Kabbalah it is considered “not drawing light of Hochma.” Such a person does not touch grapes or grape products, such as wine. This is called being a hermit. However, it is not so for a priest, who is permitted to have some of it.

These are forms of corrections that everyone will have to experience in some of the desires. Through them we correct the desire and move on. In that state we already know how to use the light of Hochma from below upward and receive it. All the things that were forbidden were so only because he or she was not strong enough to use them with the aim to bestow.

Assume that a person offers me a box of great chocolate, and I really like sweets. Although I could give it to others, I say, “Don’t give it to me.” This is called being a hermit. Afterward I acquire a bigger Masach (screen), I acquire a measure of love for someone, and that measure is greater than the love I have for the chocolate, so I say, “Give it to me.” I am now ready to make an act of bestowal, to pass this light, this pleasure, through me to another.

In our world Kabbalists talk about a person having to enjoy life, marry, and lead a normal life. That is, we can do anything as long as we bring these pleasures to a spiritual level and not lose them on the corporeal one. After all, on the corporeal level we cannot enjoy everything in life.

The Torah teaches us how to rise to such a level of pleasures that they will all flow through us to others and return back and forth. This is called “spiritual life”: endless, whole, and this is where we are being elevated. When a person grabs for oneself everything one thinks that he or she deserves, it immediately stops the flow and leaves a person with nothing in its stead, until that person dies. However, if one enters the circle of energy, flow, knowledge, and sensation of endless pleasures—because it passes among everyone—that person is regarded as leading spiritual life.

A blessing in spirituality is a force that exists on the level of Bina, influencing lower desires and blessing them, leading them to the level of Bina, too. A blessing is the degree of bestowal, Bina; it is the ability to bestow, to give.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/nasso-take-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-7/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/nasso-take-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-7/BaMidbar (In the Desert) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/0Q7rEPYiylk/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bamidbar-desert-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/#respondSun, 17 May 2020 03:00:20 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=6005Numbers, 1:1-4:20 This Week’s Torah Portion | May 17 – May 23, 2020 – 23 Iyar – 29 Iyar, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, BaMidbar (In the Desert), begins with the Creator commanding the children of Israel by tribes to bring men who had served in the army and were at least twenty years old, and appoint them as heads of tribes and presidents. […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, BaMidbar (In the Desert), begins with the Creator commanding the children of Israel by tribes to bring men who had served in the army and were at least twenty years old, and appoint them as heads of tribes and presidents. Following the nomination, Moses is requested to explain to them where each tribe should be during the journey and while stopping in the desert, how to arrange themselves by tribes and banners according to the four directions, with the tabernacle in the middle.

The portion reiterates the role of the Levites, who are to serve in the tabernacle. The tribe of Levi is special because it has no place or lot of its own; it is to serve everyone and help everyone, especially the priests in the tabernacle. The role of the Levites is to assemble and disassemble the tabernacle at each stop during the journey of the children of Israel. They must follow strict rules that explain what to do with each part of the tabernacle and how to keep the vessels of the tabernacle.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Torah is divided into two parts: external and internal. The external Torah is the one we read and know. It is the Torah that our fathers (ourselves in previous incarnations, since our souls reincarnate from generation to generation) observed in the past. However, there are things to sort in it. The Torah describes the journey of the children of Israel in the desert and how they should conduct themselves there. It details how to build the tabernacle, divide into priests, Levites, and tribes, how to set up the camp, and how to continue the journey where each one moves from place to place under the tribe’s banner up to the boundaries of the land of Israel and the onset of its conquest.

The inner Torah is actually the main thing. Through it we correct and adjust ourselves internally in order to discover that upper force from which we receive the Torah in actual fact. That is, it is about revealing the Creator to the creatures. Here we are talking about man as a small world, where all that is described in the Torah—priests, Levites, Israel, and the twelve tribes—is within us as replications. The inner Torah touches each of us and instructs us what we must do in order to discover the upper force here and now.

One who has not corrected him or herself is certainly immersed in the ego, the evil inclination, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”[1] That state is called a “desert.” The sensation of the desert is the place of the Klipot (shells/peels), meaning uncorrected desires. While in that feeling we have nothing to revive us, to give us spiritual life. Even if we have material abundance we still feel that we are in the desert.

We can see it in today’s life, too, throughout our desperate world. Judging by divorce rates, drug abuse, and terrorism, more and more people are unhappy. They feel that life is no longer satisfying. We have grown and cannot settle for what we have; we aspire for more. It is a sensation that this life is a desert.

If we can compare our lives to a desert, we must arrange our lives accordingly so we may traverse it in peace and arrive at the land of Israel. The word Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire), and Ysrael (Israel) means YasharEl (straight to God), so I am directed only toward the revelation of Godliness.

For that, we must use the wisdom of Kabbalah. Kabbalah is a method to reveal the Creator to the creatures in this world. Reaching the land of Israel means correcting our desire into a state where we discover the Creator and the spiritual world here and now, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”[2]

The Torah is instructions. It tells us that if we follow the stages described in the portion we will traverse the desert in peace and achieve the revelation of Godliness. This is the purpose of our lives and we are built for, and intended to obtain it. Hence, we should see all the rules and counsels in the portion as internal corrections we must find.

My twelve tribes are my own will to receive. That is, they are my inner qualities that must be arranged according to the Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, by the three lines. It is a structure of my soul—HBD–HGT–NHY. The priest, Levi, and Israel are HBD. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses, Aaron, Joseph, and David are the structure of the qualities of the soul. Accordingly, each of us should set ourselves up.

To the extent that we correct our desires, we gradually come to a state where we discover the stages of walking in the desert. In that process we obtain the qualities of bestowal, Bina. Upon completion of the process we reach Moses’ state—a loyal shepherd. This means that we rise to the degree of faith, bestowal, completion. When the Moses in us dies, namely concludes its work, that degree remains “on the other side of the Jordan.” This is when we move to the land of Israel and begin to conquer it.

In the desert, as well as in the occupation of the land, there are Klipot and struggles. In the desert we were only acquiring the new quality of bestowal over our will to receive. We rose above the will to receive. But in the land of Israel we must conquer the land. When we enter the land of Israel, we literally invert our will to receive from reception into the desire to bestow. The occupation is managing our ego in the form of bestowal and love.

The portion explains the approach to the first great corrections we experience on our spiritual path. The whole process of our correction divides into two parts: the desert, and the land of Israel. Our journey through the desert over the forty years is Malchut rising to Bina, symbolized by the letter Mem, which is forty in Gematria (numeric values given to each letter in the Hebrew alphabet).

From Bina, we climb to the degree of Keter, conquering the land and building the Temple. This is when the heart becomes a Kli (vessel) for reception of the light, the revelation of Godliness. This is called Beit HaMikdash (House of the Temple, or simply, the Temple).

Questions and Answers

Why does the portion begin with the need to appoint heads to the tribes and count everyone from twenty years of age and above?

This process represents a person having to choose which principles to follow. We are only desires to receive, but we also have a little bit of the desire to bestow from above. It is called “a portion of God from above” (Job 31:2). It is the beginning of the soul.

Using the beginning of this soul as a head and beginning to manage our general, egoistic will to receive through it toward bestowal, love of others, Arvut (mutual guarantee), “love your neighbor as yourself,”[3] and “that which you hate, do not do to your neighbor,”[4] will divide this mass of our will to receive properly. It will follow an order of tribes, thousands, and tens. This division also happens within each tribe—to priest, Levite, and Israel.

The priests, and the Levites who help them, are detached from the tribes. They serve only spiritual needs. This is why they are considered “the collective head.” Through this internal psychology, we distinguish what is important, what is not, and gradually correct ourselves, where the secondary joins the primary and follows it.

Currently you cannot feel this division, but as you work on yourself you will begin to feel that your will to receive is not merely a desire, but truly consists of twelve tribes—men, women, children, animals, the desert, and other parts, and even the entire world.

You will discover that your will to receive is divided into degrees: still, vegetative, animate, and human. The still, vegetative, and animate are the surrounding world, and the human is people. In desires that belong to the human degree we have free choice; we can manage them. This is how we should sort our desires and advance.

Within us there is nothing but desires and instructions. The instructions is the Torah—the wisdom of Kabbalah as the inner Torah. We sort our desires so that each desire, which is the speaking, the Kli (vessel) that was taken from Egypt, is corrected into a Kli that belongs to the land of Israel, to the Temple, and is working entirely in order to bestow, toward love.

From The Zohar: The Count and the Calculation

And yet, the world was not rooted in its root until Jacob begot twelve tribes and seventy souls, and the world was planted. However, it was not completed until Israel received the Torah and the tabernacle had been established. Then the worlds persisted and were completed and the upper ones and lower ones were perfumed.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the three lines. The right line is Abraham, and his Klipa (shell/peel) is Ishmael. The left line is Isaac, and his Klipa is Esau. The middle line is Israel, and its Klipa that is usually referred to as “mixed multitude.” We have to manage this order through the Torah, namely by proper study of the wisdom of Kabbalah, where the light is concealed, as this is the Torah of light, as it is written, “The light in it would reform them.”[5]

If we truly want to correct ourselves and see ourselves arranged and corrected as the Torah describes, in three lines, we must study so the light will influence us. We are divided in such a way that on the left we have the ego, and on the right we have the light of Torah that reforms. The more the light of Torah reforms the ego, according to our labor, the middle line—which includes these two forces—accumulates and subjugates the ego to the rule of the light. Thus, a Kli is formed in which the power of the Creator, the upper force, appears.

We constantly add ego to the correction using a greater light that appears. In this way we climb up the middle line, the line of Jacob. Hence, before the arrival of Jacob there is no match between man and the upper force, the upper world. As soon as a person puts the inner Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the order of these three lines, he or she begins to match the upper force and work with it in reciprocity.

What does one need to do until these discernments develop?

We need to follow what the Kabbalists write for us to the letter: study only in a group with love of friends. Our three primary sources are The Book of Zohar, the writings of the ARI, and the writings of Baal HaSulam. Internally, we must follow only what is written in these books.

Why were Israel commanded to appoint men who served in the army and were twenty years of age or more?

Being twenty years of age in spirituality means that a person is fit for “real estate” deals. Ibur (conception), Yenika (nursing/infancy), and Mochin (adulthood/maturity) are the three phases by which we grow. It is like a fetus who is born after nine months and begins to grow. The stages of spiritual growth are identical—from infancy to maturity. Spiritual infancy ends at age thirteen.

In spirituality, Ibur is a very high degree: a person becomes completely annulled before the upper one, included in it as a drop of semen, while the upper one is nurturing it. For the light to influence us we must cancel ourselves as if we do not exist. If we want to draw the light so it will raise us, we must learn with a group and be part of it, we must want the good environment and the light that comes through it to influence us. In this way we advance in stages that may last less then nine months. It all depends on our efforts.

When we are born, our will to receive is already greater. We develop in awareness and understanding until we are at age thirteen, and from there continue through twenty. At twenty, we are not merely grownups. Rather, we can be owners of our land. “Land” refers to the greatest, lowest, most basic will to receive. Henceforth we are fit for every internal correction.

Is there a connection between the spiritual degrees of Levi (Levite) and Cohen (priest), and people whose last name is so?

No, the roles of Levi and Cohen will appear according to one’s spiritual level, not by one’s last name. In spirituality, a person’s son indicates a result of a spiritual degree because the wisdom Kabbalah speaks only about spiritual degrees. In the physical world we cannot know who is a priest, who is Levite, and who is Israel. It will appear in due time.

Establishing of the Temple will be possible only after we correct ourselves and restore the Temple in our hearts. Then, as with Bezalel, we will be able to build the external structure out of our attainment and understanding. When we are wisehearted and our hearts are filled with the light of Hochma (wisdom), the revelation of Godliness, we will know what external action to take through our feelings. In the Temple will be priests, Levites, and Israel, each according to one’s degree.

This portion focuses on the tribe of Levi; what is so special about it?

It is written about Israel in relation to the nations of the world: “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). Generally speaking, in this world we are only required to recognize the negative, become sensitive to what is bad, and correct it into being good. To the extent that we discover that our nature is bad, we want to rid ourselves of it. But our problem is education—of ourselves and of others.

Therefore, the only role of priests and Levites is to educate the people. The priests connect to a higher degree and bring from there the light that reforms in order to pass it on to the Levites, who then pass it on to the people. Thus, each degree, each spiritual Partzuf, divides into three: HBD, HGT, NHY, which are Cohen (priest), Levite (Levi), and Ysrael (Israel).

Levites have no lot because the Creator is their lot. They are in Dvekut (adhesion) with a higher degree, the upper force. They have no desire to receive for themselves what they must correct. They have reached a level of correction where their will to receive aims entirely to bestow. For this reason they are attached to the upper force. Through the Levites, we too, Israel, who are at a lower degree, can receive the light and the direction toward progress.

Is there a meaning to the order of the portions, and if so, does it concern our spiritual development?

Yes, it is how our world is divided. In our world, as in the spiritual world, there are terms, times in the year that are divided into portions. Everything possesses a unique force. Hence, each week has its own portion because there is a special force that acts from above accordingly. As we advance from portion to portion, we correct ourselves.

Therefore, as root and branch, this state also occurs in our world. You must not mix the portions; each portion must be read in its time. Thus, you cannot read the portion, Bamidbar (In the Desert) on Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year’s Eve), nor can you read during the winter a portion that is to be read in the summer.

Sometimes when we read a portion, it feels as though it is no longer relevant to us.

We do not treat portions as being in the past. The Torah is the law of life. To reach the source of life we must assume it on ourselves. The Torah was given only to discover the Creator and cling to Him.

What is the meaning of the “hurly burly” concerning the tabernacle: rising, leaving, journeying, and standing around it?

It is the holy, corrected Kli within us. I focus all my desires, discernments, inclinations, and qualities on a state of bestowal, similar to the Creator, the force of bestowal, the good who does good. I try to correct and bring myself to a state where my nucleus, my hope, my entire being has something in them that is similar to the upper force, and the upper light will come and correct me into that state.

The tabernacle is actually man’s soul. If, out of my entire egoistic will to receive I correct a part so that it aims to bestow, in that part I feel the Creator. That part is called “a soul,” and what fills it is the revelation of the Creator.

The work of correction makes us a tabernacle and surrounds us in the tabernacle. We, in fact, must turn ourselves into the Temple.

What or who is the shepherd in the portion?

A shepherd is the degree of Moses, the loyal shepherd. One must choose this degree every moment. At every stop I have to choose what is leading me and where, what is my life, who is my shepherd, and whom my desires and thoughts follow.

Our correction is to walk in a way known as “the Torah, Israel, and the Creator are one.” If we want to be Israel, we must follow the light that reforms. When we follow it, the light brings us to the quality of the Creator, as it is written, “return, O Israel, to the Lord your God” (Hosea 14:2).

I must decide that I must have that quality of bestowal and absolute love. This is the only reason why the Torah was given to us, and this is what we receive when we use it. It was said about it, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,” for “the light in it would reform them.” What reforms is the good who does good, the quality of bestowal and love we acquire. We attain that quality within, not in some image outside of us. We perceive within us the quality of bestowal and love that we call Boreh (Creator), from the words Be Re’eh (come and see).

Will such guidance appear in our world in a more corrected state, and if so, how?

Of course the guidance will appear. Today the world is falling into a global crisis, to a feeling that we are truly in the desert. This desert will push us to advance only toward the inner land of Israel, because this is the whole purpose of the global crisis.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bamidbar-desert-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bamidbar-desert-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/BaHar (On Mount Sinai) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/61q53ICzbHg/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bahar-mount-sinai-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/#respondSun, 10 May 2020 03:00:20 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=6003Leviticus, 25:1-26:2 This Week’s Torah Portion | May 10 – May 16, 2020 – 16 Iyar – 22 Iyar, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, Bahar (On Mount Sinai), deals primarily with what appears to be laws of finance. It begins with Moses being on Mount Sinai, receiving from the Creator the Mitzva (commandment) of Shmita (omission of cultivation) of the land every […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, Bahar (On Mount Sinai), deals primarily with what appears to be laws of finance. It begins with Moses being on Mount Sinai, receiving from the Creator the Mitzva (commandment) of Shmita (omission of cultivation) of the land every seventh year, and the Mitzvot (plural of Mitzva) of Yovel (jubilee, 50th year anniversary). The Creator gives His blessing to it so that the sixth year will be so productive that enough produce will grow to last for the next three years, to observe the Mitzvot of Shmita and Yovel without worrying about sustenance.

Later, the portion details laws of selling a house or property, redemption of a house or a field from one person to another, laws of the lot of the Levites, forbidding selling of towns or houses that belong to them, laws of selling a person from Israel to slavery, how to treat such a person, and laws prohibiting idols, pillars, and figured stones.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The laws that this portion details are spiritual laws. Shmita[1] is a profound and sacred matter. It exists only in the land of Israel, in a desire aimed toward the Creator, in order to bestow, toward love of others. The Shmita can occur in a desire only in a process of correcting the soul.

The soul consists of six SephirotHGTNHY (Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod). The seventh Sephira is like Sabbath, Shmita. Also, seven times seven is 49, and the Yovel (jubilee, 50th year anniversary) in the Omer count. These are the degrees we climb.

We cannot correct the seventh quality, Malchut, only the six qualities included in it. Therefore, we leave it and avoid correction, and this is the observing of the Sabbath, similar to observing the Shmita. Following the corrections is a state defined as “He who labored on Sabbath Eve will eat on Sabbath,” opposite, “And he who did not labor on Sabbath Eve, from where will he eat on Sabbath?”[2]

On Sabbath, everything one has received from the corrections made during the six workdays comes true. The correction permeates the seventh day and appears in it. This is why on Sabbath everything is twofold: the meals and the customs, as is the case with a year of Shmita. On that year a person must work and live in such a way that at the end of the sixth year there will be enough crop to last for the seventh year, as well, during which one does not work, and also enough for the eighth year, until new crops are harvested. This is why the profits on the sixth year must be threefold the normal.

When we rise in degrees as we correct the soul, we skip the three Behinot (discernments), 1-2-3, and only BehinaDalet (no. 4) appears. It is impossible to correct Malchut; it is only possible to leap over it because it collects and gives us the results of what happened earlier.

This is why it does not mean we do not make profits on Sabbath, Shmita, or Yovel. On the contrary, there are rules specifically for those years making it possible to sell, buy, and make other corrections that cannot be made on other years. Specifically on the seventh year and its products (math.), special conditions appear where if one has worked and gained in the previous states, the profit is received now. These are not years of empty-handedness, but rather the time of reception of the reward for the labor we have given before.

These rules concern the Shmita. Concerning buying and selling of houses, we must understand that in spirituality, a house is the “wrapping” of a person. Our inner structure consists of Mocha (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh/muscle), and Or (skin). Another way to put it is, Shoresh (root), Neshama (soul), Guf (body), Levush (clothing), and Heichal (house/hall). Levush is the clothes, and Heichal is all that is outside of us.

Specifically during Shmita, it is possible to correct desires that are very big on these degrees, such as selling of houses, Levites, etc. It is not simple to reach these degrees, especially the laws concerning Israeli slaves: buying and selling them, freeing them from slavery and passing over, or making an idol and an image, which is a high degree.

The degrees of Shmita and Yovel belong to the degree of Bina. Our entire correction concerns joining Bina with Malchut. Bina is the quality of bestowal, known as “desiring mercy,” while Malchut is the egoistic will to receive, which is initially corrupt. The goal is to connect the two, as it is written, “And the two of them went” (Ruth, 1:19), written about Ruth and Naomi.

The portion is called BaHar (On Mount Sinai) because specifically when a person climbs toward the Creator, to the degree of Bina, one receives the laws of the Sabbath, Shmita, and Yovel, which symbolize our egoistic will to receive with the qualities of the Creator, the qualities of Bina.

The symbol of Sabbath, the Yovel, and the Shmita, is the connection between Malchut and Bina, when Malchut is included in the degree of Bina, the quality of bestowal. From that bonding—the connection between the degrees of Bina and Malchut, while prohibiting to touch the will to receive and correct—emerge all the laws of the Sabbath, the prohibition on performing the 39 works, the corrections of Malchut.

Questions and Answers

For all the efforts of governments and economists, we cannot resolve the global crisis. We are unsuccessfully looking for a solution. What does the economy reflect today?

The economy reflects our ego. We are not working properly with our egos. If we direct them even slightly toward others’ benefit, to bonding, love, mutual guarantee, and sharing, we will begin to feel its benefits in every realm of life.

We must understand that the laws mentioned in this portion were given long before modern economy was established. At that time there were no banks, investments, or multinational trade. People lived off the land. All of a sudden they were told to stop tilling their lands and stop harvesting its crops.

This poses an existential question, seemingly stemming from an irrational approach to the world. It stems from the fact that we do not follow the rules of the nations, but the rules of Israel. Israel means YasharEl (straight to God). This is why we must perform corrections on Malchut after its connection to the degree of Bina, to the superior quality of bestowal, to the upper light. We must let the upper light work.

On a year of Shmita a person leaves one’s desire and does not correct it. Unless he receives powers from above, he will not have the strength to correct it. Therefore, a person must correct the degree in which the light gives from a higher degree, from Bina, and fills one up. Only then can one correct the desires in the soul using the above-mentioned six qualities HGTNHY. And then again one must be filled by the degree of Bina, receive the power from her, and subsequently become corrected.

Therefore, as was mentioned above, Sabbath comes as a result of the six days of work: “he who did not labor on Sabbath Eve, from where will he eat on Sabbath?” Moreover, it “charges” us with strength for the coming week, for the next correction, the next degree. Each week is a new degree, and the same goes for Shmita. The omissions do not mean that a person eats what he or she has sown before. Rather, it is a summary of the former, a preparation for the next degree, the six years ahead. If we kept this in spirituality we would be in a wonderful situation.

What practical advice can we give economists to improve the situation?

We can improve the situation only through inner work, when we have a genuine desire to correct our desires and raise them to the degree of Bina, “desiring mercy,” or at least to the attitude, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend,”[3] so we could at least avoid harming or exploiting others. But ideally, it should be “love your neighbor as yourself.”[4]

There is nothing that can be done. The economic situation in Europe, for example, is very bad. Corrections are possible, but only by educating first.

First we need to reeducate people through Integral Education, which provides an explanation about the circularity of nature and our interconnectedness. By understanding it we establish the first condition—Arvut (mutual guarantee).

We need to raise humanity’s understanding in the following areas: what is happening to us, the kind of world we live in, the challenges we are facing, why they are sent to us, by whom, why we must correct ourselves specifically in this manner, what we gain by it, and if we have free choice in the matter.

How can we do this work?

We need to do it in our relations with all other people. We need to create the infrastructure from our corrected desires toward others, and so do others, mutually, so that Godliness will appear in those desires.

So in order to solve economic problems in the new era we must first build a social infrastructure throughout the world?

Yes, because otherwise nothing will happen. As we can see, throughout the world no one can reach any agreements. There are even no plans or fantasies of reaching one. The world does not know how to solve the situation and exists only by accumulating debt.

How do you “translate” the laws specified in this portion into a social infrastructure?

We are talking about desires in Shoresh, Neshama, Guf, Levush, Heichal, or Mocha, Atzamot, Gidin, Bassar, and Or. Our world is only a replication of our corrupted desires over the light, similar to black and white images we see in movies. The black is absence of white. It is we who cast shade on the light and darken it. We need to neutralize ourselves so everything is light, and then we will be able to maintain ourselves in a complete and eternal world.

From The Zohar: Then the Land Shall Have a Sabbath for the Lord

Hey is rest of the upper and lower. This is why there is the upper HeydeHaVaYaH, Bina, and the lower HeydeHaVaYaH, Malchut. The upper Hey is rest of the upper ones, and the lower Hey is rest of the lower ones. The upper Hey is seven years seven times, the forty-nine gates of Bina, and the lower Hey is only seven years. The lower one is called Shmita, and the upper one is called Yovel (Jubilee, fifty-year anniversary).

Zohar for All, BaHar (On Mount Sinai), item 7

Everything stems from Malchut and Bina, between whom there are 49 degrees, as we count in the Omer Count between Passover and the festival of Shavuot. All our corrections are in Malchut, which is a collection of desires we must elevate to the degree of Bina, desiring mercy.

It is not the end of the process, only its middle. By making this correction we make the correction of “desiring mercy,” as Old Hillel said, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.”[3] However, it is only the middle of the way. The rest of it concerns elevating the degree of Bina to the degree of Keter, which is “love your neighbor as yourself.”[4] This is additional work, which forms a term from which onward a person will yield crop.

How can you explain to a contemporary person that every seven years you have to stop producing?

If a person is not reared toward it, he or she will not be able to understand it, nor will it be possible to explain about it. Education must come first.

Education divides into two sections: learning, and education. Learning (provision of information) entails explaining about the process humanity is going through, the system of providence and guidance, building this world in accord with the upper world, and the rules and forces that operate our world. We must learn how these forces evoke in each of us the Reshimo (recollection), the spiritual gene that develops us. We need to understand the direction, purpose, and goal we will reach as we develop from day to day and from moment to moment. We need to know how we can aim our fate—as though with two reigns—to arrive in peace at the final, perfect state.

Without receiving an explanation about the entire system, the world we are in, the physics of the world, and how it functions, how it moves, we will not be able to understand it. People cannot simply be told, “Stop working.”

It is done today; we know there are foods such as bread that are made not on a year of Shmita.

Indeed, but you cannot observe something to the fullest before it is kept in its spiritual root.

The meaning of those two degrees, son and slave, is found in the words, “And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant, Israel, in whom I will be glorified.’” “And He said unto me, ‘You are My servant” is the degree of slave, left line, Malchut. “Israel” is the degree of son, right line, ZA. When they are included as one, it is written, “In whom I will be glorified.”

Zohar for All, BaHar (On Mount Sinai), item 85

On the one hand, a slave of the Creator is a high degree. On the other hand, “You are the sons of the Lord your God” (Deuteronomy, 14:1) is also a high degree, and both connect in the middle line. Comparing the degrees is similar to the written Torah vs. the oral Torah, to law vs. rule, to Zeir Anpin vs. Malchut. Here, too, we must come to a state where the degree of slave and the degree of son do not contradict, but rather connect with one another, reaching the middle line, the Masach of Hirik. This is how we advance.

On the one hand a slave is a very high degree. It was said about Moses that he was the Lord’s servant. On the other hand, it is a degree of lowness. We also know that there are laws prohibiting selling of slaves. How does it all fit together?

Man is in the middle, neither a son nor a slave, but both. Man contains both the right and the left lines. The appellations refer to a working person, who advances toward the Creator, where each appellation points to a unique manner of connection to the revelation of the Creator.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bahar-mount-sinai-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/bahar-mount-sinai-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/BeHukotai (In My Statutes) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/8BhFP6d8QJ8/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/behukotai-statutes-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/#respondSun, 10 May 2020 03:00:06 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=6004Leviticus, 26:3-27:34 This Week’s Torah Portion | May 10 – May 16, 2020 – 16 Iyar – 22 Iyar, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), deals primarily with the topic of reward and punishment for the children of Israel according to their behavior—whether they follow the ways of the Creator. It is written, “If you walk in My […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), deals primarily with the topic of reward and punishment for the children of Israel according to their behavior—whether they follow the ways of the Creator. It is written, “If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments, and do them” (Leviticus, 26:3). The portion begins with presenting the reward: “Then I shall give you rains in their season, so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit” (Leviticus, 26:4). Opposite that is the presentation of the punishment: “But if you do not obey Me and do not carry out all these commandments” (Leviticus, 26:14), “I will appoint terror over you: the tuberculosis and the malaria,” (Leviticus, 26:16), and the worst punishment of all—exile.

If the people of Israel repent, the Creator promises to remember the covenant He has made with them and forgive them. It is written, “Yet in spite of this, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not reject them, nor will I so abhor them as to destroy them, breaking My covenant with them; for I am the Lord their God” (Leviticus, 26:44). The portion ends with additional laws concerning vows, ostracism, tithing, and others.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The issue of reward and punishment was not presented at the beginning of the Torah because it is impossible to understand it unless you are able to make free choice. Without this ability it is pointless to instructions on this issue. First you must learn the laws and judgments. Then, if you keep them you will be rewarded, and if not, you will be punished. You cannot punish in advance. First one needs to reach the spiritual degree of shifting from unfounded hatred to brotherly love, to “love your neighbor as yourself,”[1] which is the whole Torah. This is the way we must walk: we must correct our evil inclination and turn it into a good inclination through the light that reforms[2], by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah, the wisdom of light.

An ordinary person does not have free choice. Rather, such a person is “managed” by Reshimot (recollections), which are desires and thoughts that awaken within without knowing their origin. A person simply wants something without knowing the source of that desires, living one’s life aiming to satisfy the desire that awakens within without any ability to rise above those Reshimot, these bits of data, or govern them.

Such people cannot scrutinize and sort: I want this but I do not … as it is written, “And you will not follow after your own heart” (Numbers, 15:39). Rather they do it as a natural instinct, as part of the process of development. This sort of work does not require reward or punishment. This is why it is written, “They are as beasts” (Psalms, 49:13).

A person begins to develop through the Torah—by studying the wisdom of Kabbalah and drawing the light that reforms, thus correcting the heart. The heart is all the desires we must correct from aiming to receive for ourselves to aiming to bestow, to love of others, in favor of the world and in equivalence of form with the Creator—similarity with Him, as good as He is.

We do not feel this goodness because it is hidden from us. Through our egos we feel everything as bad, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.”[3] We are required to gain extensive knowledge and experience in order to correct ourselves so we can control our inclinations and thoughts, to aim those lights, those upper forces, and connect with the right approach, in mutuality and partnership with the Creator. By that we adhere to the Creator, connect with Him, understand the purpose, the plan of creation, everything that is happening, and the process we must undergo.

In the physical world we teach children until they are twenty years old or so. According to the Torah, at twenty, a child is ready for everything, unlike at thirteen. At twenty years of age we can control everything and be in our own right. That degree gives one the ability to withstand any correction in spirituality, face the reward and the punishment.

We cannot tell a person who knows nothing, “Be careful or you will be punished.” That person is like a little child who has no idea what is being asked. Therefore, reward and punishment requires serious preparation.

This portion comes after a person has gone through a lot, the exit from Babylon, the development leading to the exile in Egypt, the reception of the Torah, and so forth. Following the learning in the desert, a person seemingly rises a little above the ego, gradually reaching the state of reward and punishment.

Today the whole world is in a process and a system that are in fact, reward and punishment. All 613 Mitzvot (commandments) are to correct the evil in us toward others. We are all good to ourselves and to an extent, mean to others. We must invert it, become considerate only of others because this is the only way is go from “The love of man to the love of God.”[4]

Many people doubt that it is even true that if they correct their attitude toward others, as in “love your neighbor as yourself,” which is the great rule of Torah, all the problems and illnesses, and all the bad in the world will be corrected.

Can we prevent diseases and plagues by correcting our relations? Will the climate suddenly change for the better and we will live in paradise? What is the connection between treating others well and a good life in every sense and on every level?

This is just how it works—keeping the law, “love your neighbor as yourself,” corrects everything; there are no other Mitzvot. All 613 Mitzvot are the 613 desires in our soul. They appear when we begin to correct and rise above our “beasts” in the correction of the human in us, in our desire to connect with others, to give them abundance, desiring to rise above ourselves in order to discover the Creator.

As we come to know the 613 desires of the soul, we discover that they are all bad. This is why we say during the days of the Selihot (asking forgiveness, special days before Yom Kippur [Day of Atonement]) and on Yom Kippur, “We are to blame,” “We are at fault,” without understanding where all this evil came from.

As we discover our soul, we first discover that it is broken. This is how we receive it because “I have created the evil inclination.”[3] If we correct these desires we will not need to correct anything else, and all the problems will vanish and disappear.

It is written in the portion that if they follow it they will have rain in time, health, and success in everything they do. They will be blessed in everything. It seems perplexing that there is a connection between rain and good behavior, especially if we are talking about treatment of others. And yet, this is the general solution for everyone.

According to the development of humanity, we are in a state where we are begin to take control over our fates, something we did not have before. It is surprising because we have always developed through desires that appeared from within.

Today, however, we are moving into a very special situation where the next degree is appearing to us, the degree of the “round,” integral world where everyone is interconnected, and where the obligation to be “as one man with one heart”[5] is appearing.

For the first time in history we must implement this law, and not only in Israel, but throughout the world. Therefore, we must tell about it and explain to everyone, learn, to teach, and be the “light of the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6). We must convey the light that corrects the evil inclination, and this is how the whole world will achieve the desirable correction.

Questions and Answers

If I can see and feel the reward or punishment, there is no need to explain. If I mistakenly put my hand in the fire, I will naturally pull it out. But if I cannot see or feel the transgression, what is the point of explaining it? I cannot keep what I do not know, so what are the reward and punishment for, and for whom is the explanation?

We are not talking about putting our hand in the fire. We are talking about correcting our egoistic desires. Each desire is luring us to what appears as good so we will profit at the expense of others, consider only ourselves, and never give a thought to what happens outside of us. This is how we feel naturally, namely that the world was created for our own pleasure. But the Torah requires the opposite—that we rise above the ego and transform into “love your neighbor as yourself.”

This is why we must obtain Arvut (mutual guarantee) between us, Arvut that was the initial precondition for the reception of the Torah. Arvut means that I think of everyone and vouch for them. It seems as though the Arvut is like signing for everyone and being responsible for what every person does. This is unreasonable. Yet, this is the degree we must achieve. It is the correction we must eventually obtain.

The world is advancing. Each day we are discovering that it is changing toward demanding this of us. The Torah explains that if we do this, things will be good, and if we do not, we will be punished. And if we are completely unworthy, we will be exiled.

Exile is complete detachment. It is a state where one is living a harsh life, detached and tormented. These torments are like the torments of Pharaoh, leading us back toward the goal, as was said about Pharaoh, who “brought the children of Israel closer to our Father in heaven.”[6] From this point onward we try once more to rise to the degree of choice.

It is best if we learn in advance what to do and how, and on what it depends. We need to learn the general law of reality using the wisdom of Kabbalah, which explains how the forces act on us, how they are set up, and how they rear us as embryos and as growing children.

As we are advancing toward that state, we must take upon ourselves the laws of this vast reality, and keep it consciously and willingly. In other words, we have to change our desires, as it is written, “Make your wish as His wish.”[7]

The world is in a very difficult state today. If we look at where we are and at what lies ahead, we will feel obliged to make that leap of faith and spread the wisdom of Kabbalah.

From The Zohar: If You Walk in My Statutes

“If you walk in My statutes.” “In My statutes” is Malchut, the place upon which the sentences of the Torah depend, as it is written, “My statutes shall you keep.” Malchut is called “law.” The sentences of the Torah are included in her. “My ordinances shall you keep.” An ordinance is another, high place, ZA, to which that statute, Malchut, grips. Thus, upper and lower conjoin. The statutes in Malchut are in the ordinances in ZA, and all the Mitzvot [commandments] in the Torah and all the sentences in the Torah and all the sanctities in the Torah are gripped to these ZA and Malchut, since the written Torah is ZA and the oral Torah is Malchut.

Zoharfor All, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), item 16

Malchut is called the “Assembly of Israel” because she assembles all our souls. She is also called Shechina (Divinity) because the Creator is in her. She becomes revealed by the law of equivalence of form.

The Creator is called “The Holy One Blessed Be He,” Zeir Anpin. Toward Malchut, it is her upper one, and the upper one is always considered the “emanator.” Our work is only to correct Malchut (kingdom/kingship) as it is written, “To correct [also establish] the world in the kingdom of Shadai [the Lord].”[8]

The world is concealed, and we must make everything revealed. Shadai means She Dai (enough), meaning under limitations. When Malchut clings to Zeir Anpin there will be Zivug (coupling), connection between them. This will connect the Creator and the Shechina, Zeir Anpin and Malchut, law and ordinance, the written Torah and the oral Torah. Everything will connect.

It is not the Torah that we know as a printed book or as text on parchment. Rather, the Torah is a revelation of the Creator to the creature. According to our level of revelation, we have the written Torah and the oral Torah, either at the level of Malchut or at the level of Zeir Anpin. The Zohar relates to our ascent from souls scattered in the worlds Beria, Yetzira, Assiya, to the collection of our souls, desires, our cravings to reveal the Creator, to rise to His degree, when all of us gather in Malchut, the Assembly of Israel. By the force of our desire to be together we compel Malchut to rise to Zeir Anpin and unite with him. This is how we achieve Dvekut with the Creator.

Do reward and punishment indicate where we are not acting according to nature’s laws, so nature acts toward us in an unfavorable manner?

We live in the world we have built for us. Even now we are standing right before the light of Ein Sof (infinity). The world is a projection of our own qualities. The Creator fills everything; we only feel the world outside and others. That is, we only feel our own qualities: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, projecting various shades on the abstract light, which we see as the image of the world. We have no idea how truly immersed we are in that depiction, in the charade. We build our world by ourselves. The wisdom of Kabbalah often writes about it, such as in Baal HaSulam’s “Preface to the Book of Zohar,” and in the ARI’s Gate to Intentions.

Today even science is saying that to the extent that we correct ourselves, we see an opposite world. If we change one of our qualities from bad to good, we will see a different world. This is how we correct all the desires that the light that reforms shows us. Of course, it is impossible to correct them alone, but one can ask for the correction and sympathize with it, and thus achieve the corrected state.

In other words, the animate degree that humanity is currently in must pass away and rise to a higher degree, called Adam (human). Only then will we understand what reward and punishment truly are feel them.

When and how will that transformation take place?

It will happen only through disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah, as the Kabbalists write. This is why the Kabbalists hid it until now, as Baal HaSulam writes in his essay, “Time to Act.” Today we must disseminate the wisdom and correct ourselves, as well as work for the correction of the world, thus being a “light for the nations.”

Is this the natural flow of humanity?

Of course, we have to do it. It is the future of the whole of humanity. In the near future all of us will have to make that change. First, the people of Israel will dispel anti-Semitism and the negative attitude toward Israel that is prevailing in the world today.

Actually, anti-Semitism is a natural attitude, which will only worsen as the ego grows and the people of Israel delay the correction. Israel will be blamed for the world not being in good condition. It is arranged this way from above. The world is feeling it subconsciously, and we are witnessing reflections of that accusation on a daily basis.

From The Zohar: Seven Times More for Your Sins

The Creator’s sublime love for Israel is like a king who had an only son who sinned before the king. One day, he sinned before the king. The king said, “All those days I have been striking you but you did not receive. Henceforth, see what I will do to you. If I expel you from the land and take you out of the kingdom, bears might charge you in the field, or wild wolves or murderers could obliterate you from the world. What should I do? Instead, you and I will go out of the land.”

“You and I will leave the land and go into exile.” This is what the Creator said to Israel. “What shall I do with you? I have stricken you but you would not listen; I have brought upon you enemies at war and harm-doers to strike you, but you would not listen. If I take you out of the land alone, I fear that several bears and several wolves will rise against you and obliterate you from the world. But what shall I do with you? Thus, you and I will leave the land and go into exile, as it is written, ‘And I will chastise you,’ to go into exile. And if you say that I will leave you, I, too, am with you.”

Zoharfor All, BeHukotai (In My Statutes), item 49-50

The above text does not concern exile from the plot of land we live on and call “the land of Israel.” rather; it is exile from the spiritual land of Israel. The word Eretz (land) comes from the word Ratzon (desire). Ysrael (Israel) comes from the words YasharEl (straight to God). We want to correct all of our 613 desires one at a time, so they all aim YasharEl, in order to bestow, like the Creator.

It is called being in the “complete land of Israel.” As long as we want to correct our desires so they are Israel, we will be worthy of being in those desires, as well as in the physical land of Israel. Baal HaSulam writes that we have received the land of Israel and the state of Israel as an advance so we may begin the correction. However, we have not actually won it, and if we do not carry out the correction, it will be taken away from us.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/behukotai-statutes-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/behukotai-statutes-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/Emor (Say) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/63l3tkM46tw/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/05/emor-say-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-7/#respondSun, 03 May 2020 03:00:05 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=6002Leviticus, 21:1-24:23 This Week’s Torah Portion | May 3 – May 09, 2020 – 9 Iyar – 15 Iyar, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, Emor (Say), begins with rules concerning priests, forbidding them to marry a divorced woman, a widow, or a whore, and permitting them to marry only a virgin. They are also forbidden to approach the […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, Emor (Say), begins with rules concerning priests, forbidding them to marry a divorced woman, a widow, or a whore, and permitting them to marry only a virgin. They are also forbidden to approach the dead. Only kin are permitted to be defiled and approach the dead. The High Priest is forbidden to be defiled even by his own kin have died. They are forbidden to shave their heads and beards, and they are forbidden to cast any flaws in their bodies. A Cohen (priest) with a blemish in his body will not be considered a priest, and will not be able to serve in the Temple. The portion also introduces laws of purity and impurity for priests, such as the prohibition on eating offerings, and the rules for a barren or divorced daughter of a priest.

The portion also mentions many rules concerning the Sabbath, Passover, the seventh of Passover, Shavuot, the Omer Count, and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The end of the portion speaks of a quarrel between two men, one of whom said the name of the Creator and cursed. He was punished by ejection from the camp and execution by stoning.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

What is so special about this portion that elaborates so much about priests and festivals?

The correction is only a correction of the heart, which contains all 613 desires we need to correct from using our ego in order to receive into using it in order to bestow, in favor of others and love of others. The whole Torah deals with the correction of the heart. The first stage in the correction of the heart is when we get rid of the ego. The second stage is when we use all of our heart in favor of others.

The portion describes all the levels of correction. It is written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6). This means that everyone must reach the highest degree (a Cohen [priest])——following the preparation described in the portions, Aharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Holy). The Torah constantly promotes us until we enter the land of Israel and achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator.

The portion starts with elaborating on the terms of the degree of priests. A person must correct the desires, as it specifies—prohibition on marrying a divorcee, a widow, or a whore. A priest must also avoid shaving his face and his head. He must also maintain these prohibitions until he is corrected and sees his desires in the image of man. It is as we learn regarding the perception of reality: the whole world is a reflection of our desires, an outward projection of our internality.

A priest must have natural desires that have been corrected into aiming to bestow. He must not impair his body, make any kind of paintings on it, or touch his hair. The hair is a special correction. The word Se’arot (hair) comes from the word Se’arah (storm). They are to be corrected and therefore must not be removed.

A priest is a state in which one can truly work with all the desires in order to bestow, with all the deficiencies, with the “stormy hair.” His females, namely his desires to receive, have been corrected and are no longer on the degrees of whore, divorcee, or a widow. Rather, they are virgins. A person comes to a degree where he corrects his desires back to their natural state.

The priest must approach the work of God through the work of sacrifices. He must bring his desires closer and closer to the aim to bestow, to love. Everyone must reach this degree. A person who has reached this degree is regarded as “serving in the Temple.” On the degree of priests, we place all 613 desires, called “our heart,” in the house of Kedusha (holiness) as a holy Kli (vessel) that is entirely in bestowal.

On festivals, we correct ourselves in stages that are seemingly external stages. The system changes and gives us a chance to correct our desires further in external conditions on the festivals mentioned in the Torah: Passover, Shavuot, and Yom Kippur. The Torah tells us about all the festivals except for Hanukah and Purim.

Hanukah means Hanu Koh (parked here). We achieve the correction of bestowing in order to bestow when we rise above our egos and reach the degree of Bina, of the phrase, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.”[1] In this way we detach ourselves from the egoistic will to receive and rise above it.

Purim is when a person actually achieves the end of correction. On Yom Kippur (Kippur means Ke Purim [as Purim]) we discover the evil in us has and regret it. At the same time, we are happy because now we know what to correct. Yom Kippur is not only a day of weeping. Rather, it is a day of great joy because we are happy that a trail by which to reach Purim has opened up to us, and we correct all the desires into bestowal, to love. On Purim we kill the Haman in us, all the evil in us, and achieve the end of correction—complete equivalence with the Creator.

The portion, Emor, contains all the preparations, all the previous portions. It deals with ascending to the highest degree. The portion also deals with the Sabbath, a sabbatical year, the seventh day of Passover, the seventh day of the weak, and the seventh year. It is a degree we always acquire along the way because Zeir Anpin contains six workdays; it is the upper Partzuf from which we receive the lights.

All the lights, which correspond to Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod, enter our hearts (Malchut) during the six days. Then comes the seventh day, when we do nothing. These qualities conclude the work, so no further efforts are required of us, except to maintain the situation so the lights will treat it and sanctify it. This is why the seventh day is considered a “day of holiness,” since on it we raise all the desires to the aim to bestow.

There also concerns the seventh day of Passover, the seventh day of Shavuot, as it is written, “Seven whole weeks shall there be” (Leviticus, 23:15), which are forty-nine days from Passover to Shavuot, and the seventh year, Shmita (omission). Such is the cycle of seven.

The seventh of Passover, the Omer Count, Shavuot, it all seems like a process. What is Passover and what is the process between Passover and Shavuot?

Passover is our escape from the ego, from Egypt. Although we begin to detach from it, it continues to accompany us on future degrees in problems that befall us, such as the golden calf, the water of strife, and the spies. These are all results from Egypt.

The desert is a state where one detaches and cleanses from the ego up to the degree of Bina, the entrance to the land of Israel. That state is called “forty years in the desert” because it is the correction we receive upon the exit from the ego. It is not simple; the corrections are recognition of our nature, disclosing of our broken desires and the understanding how to correct them.

The first correction is when we emerge from the ego and rise above it. This is called the “exodus from Egypt” and the “tearing of the Red Sea.” We instantaneously shift from the will to receive in order to receive, namely Egypt, and move into the desert. This is why we still do not know what to do, what will happen to us, and how it will unfold. We cannot know how to work with our nature not for our own benefit. For this reason we go through a period of confusion until we come to the tearing of the Red Sea and being at the foot of Mount Sinai.

Here the correction is in the same will to receive from which we have detached, and over which we transcended. Toward Shavuot we begin to correct it in order to bestow, toward the reception of the Torah. Seven Sabbaths are seven times seven, which is forty-nine days for corrections. Our correction is done by the six Sephirot of the upper force, Zeir Anpin, who is called The Blessed One Be He. This is the upper system that corrects us, containing six qualities—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod—which enter Malchut, our will to receive, and correct the will to receive. When these qualities correct the will to receive, we have actually corrected ourselves by counting. That is, when we seemingly count money, we pay by performing corrections each day.

During each day and night, we bless for the Sephira (singular of Sephirot) that is a result of the passing day, from night to day, as it is written, “And there was evening, and there was morning” (Genesis, 1:5). In the previous day we have corrected in the evening, too, in the revelation of the bad, as well as during the day, in the revelation of the good. We have drawn lights that corrected the desires to receive, and thus concluded the day. This is why we give thanks for having corrected the Sephira. We count the Sephirot, which is why it is called the “Omer Count.” This is how all our desires are corrected.

After thirty-three days there is a special day, LAG baOmer. LAG means thirty-three, in the Sephirot Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Multiply the seven Sephirot by seven and you have forty-nine. We begin to search for the middle. If have received all the lights before we have reached the middle, we are guaranteed to finish successfully. It is similar to a person not being given everything, but if some of the forces have been given, if some of the forces have been corrected, that person can help him or herself and begin to understand and advance independently toward the end—the correction of Shavuot. This is the state of a person on the 33rd day of the count.

We count Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, and Netzah, which are complete Sephirot, the lights that must reach us. In the SephiraHod we count five Sephirot—Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, and Hod. In Hod of Hod, if we have received the lights from above up to the point of incision, we are guaranteed to continue successfully. Thirty-three symbolizes the reception of all the lights of correction; this is why we are happy and celebrate the festival of light by lighting fires.

Does the thirty-third Sephira, Hod of Hod, symbolize the conclusion of part of the process?

Yes. Henceforth there is no doubt that the person will accomplish the Shavuot. This is why the prohibition on marrying (that begins after Passover night) is lifted on that day. Marriage means connection with Malchut. Other prohibitions are lifted on that day, such as the prohibition on cutting one’s hair. These corrections manifest externally, too, but the majority of corrections are inside, corrections we perform on ourselves by the light that shines on us, and through the giving we obtain the love of others.

Why is it that once a person has already reached the degree of “priest,” one is still bound by many laws and prohibitions?

It is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (Leviticus, 11:44). When in Kedusha (sanctity/holiness), we delight in these actions. They are not unwelcome, but rather desirable. Thus, if we try to take from a mother half her work with her baby she will not let us. She enjoys what she does for it. The baby has become a source of pleasure for her. Now this work seem hard to us, but when it becomes bestowal, and corresponding to it we receive the light that shines for us and fills us, we feel the eternity and perfection in nature, and rise above all the limitations of this world. Then there is only goodness for us.

Why is marriage such a serious matter for a priest; is marriage the connection?

The will to receive in him(Malchut), must be cleaned of any blemishes. Previously he was seemingly married to a whore, a widow, or a divorcee. That is, his desires were faulty. Now he has risen to a degree where his desire to receive is like a virgin, like the desire that the Creator created. The Creator gave us a desire to receive, but we discover it only in the final, fourth stage. Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, this is how we go through all the desires until we come to the virgin, meaning as the Creator gave it. This way we can work with the entire desire.

Why is it forbidden to say the name of the Creator?

“Saying” is revealing. There is an inner revelation, which is to bestow in order to bestow, and there is an external revelation, which is to receive in order to bestow. There are limitations to it, but it does not refer to saying the words ADNI, HaVaYaH, and so forth. A person makes a ZivugdeHakaa on the upper light that must reach the Kelim. In revealing, one discloses it from the lips and out, to the external ones. “External ones” are desires that have not been corrected. It is forbidden to disclose the name of the Creator, the upper light, to the external desires, which are outside of Kedusha and have not been corrected, as this would seemingly “short-circuit” the light with a Kli that has not been corrected with a Masach and Ohr Hozer. This is why it is called the “revelation of the bad,” and not the “revelation of the good.”

From The Zohar: The Sons of Aaron

Aaron is the beginning of all the priests in the world because the Creator chose him out of everyone to make peace in the world, and because Aaron’s ways rose with him to it. It is so because all of Aaron’s days, he would try to increase peace in the world. And because so were his ways, the Creator lifted him to priesthood, so he would instill peace in the household of above, for by his work, he causes the Zivug of the Creator with His Divinity, and peace is made in all the worlds.

Zoharfor All, Emor (Say), item 2

A priest’s role is to enhance peace in the world.

A research in genetics revealed that priesthood is hereditary. The researchers sampled Jews with surnames that indicate relation to priesthood (Kahana, Katz, Cohen, etc.) from all factions of the Jewish people, and discovered the same gene among all of them. How is being a Cohen related to the corporeal world if we should all be priests?

We cannot know what genetic changes will happen when we are all corrected. Perhaps we will rise above all that is physical. We must understand that there is the first HaVaYaH in the world of Ein Sof (infinity), then a replication of the HaVaYaH in the four Behinot (discernment) of Ohr Yashar (Direct Light) on each degree, called “ten Sephirot.” Every bottom degree consists of a more materialized substance than the top degree, but the combination, HaVaYaH, remains. This is why it is written, “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi, 3:6).

The first HaVaYaH is the light that expands in four Behinot and reaches Malchut. That structure stays. According to this pattern, as the light descends from degree to degree, from the world of Ein Sof to our world, it gives us Partzufim (plural of Partzuf), worlds, and Sephirot, and everything we learn in the upper system. This is how it is in all the worlds. The Neshama (soul), called Adam HaRishon (the First Man), was also created by the same structure, following the same internal make-up. That pattern exists in everything.

We learn that Abraham wanted to correct all of Babylon, and in each of us is a root by which we can reach the high priest. Everyone must reach it, as it is written, “They shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah, 31:33), and “My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ for all the nations” (Isaiah, 56:7). There are desires and souls that are easier, and there are those that are harder, depending on the level of the flaw. The easier ones are the children of Israel. They have to be the first to correct, hence there are stronger sparks of light in them, which are clear and burning, and appear as Cohen, Levi, and Israel.

There are people who look at a person and know if he or she is a Cohen (descendant of a priest). It is harder to spot a Levite or Israel. Not surprisingly, we can find these things in biology and medicine because everything in our world comes from the world Ein Sof and is replicated in our physical world, in our genes. This is why it must also happen in this world. Perhaps we have not discovered all the phenomena, but it is clear that every phenomenon in the world is the same as the phenomena that exist above, except here they exist in matter, not in potential.

In A Nutshell

The portions, Aharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Holy), are connected. In the portion, Aharei Mot, following the death of Aaron’s two sons—Nadav and Avihu—the Creator details before Moses various rules concerning the way Aaron may approach the Holy in the tabernacle: it requires offering several sacrifices. Aaron must choose between two male goats, one to be sacrificed as a sin offering, and the other to be sent to the desert as a “goat to Azazel.”

The portion also details the prohibition to slaughter for food without bringing an offering to the tent of meeting. The Creator instructs Moses to command the people not to follow the ways of the Egyptians and the Canaanites, and not to obey their rules. At the end of the portion the Creator tells the people of Israel not to be defiled by all the impurities that the nations that dwelled in the land of Canaan before them did because if they did, the land would repel them.

In the portion, Kedoshim (holy), the Creator says to the children of Israel through Moses: “You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy” (Leviticus, 19:2).

The portion details many different commandments between man and God, between man and man, and some that concern offering sacrifices. The portion also deals with fearing Mother and Father, observing the Sabbath, and the prohibition on idol worship. Some of the Mitzvot (commandments) relate to the land of Israel, the land of Canaan, the tithing, fruits of the tree, idol worship, and other laws.

The portion ends with a complete prohibition on incest and adultery, which are punishable by death. The Creator commands the children of Israel to keep the laws when they arrive at the land of Israel, and refrain from what they did while in Egypt. They must separate between pure and impure beasts, and, likewise, the Creator will separate between Israel and the rest of the nations. This is how they will be Holy to Him.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Most people believe that the Torah speaks of this world, that it is full of physical actions and descriptions of animals, people, and objects, rules of social conduct, what is permitted, and what is forbidden. We either forget, or have never known that this world is but a replication of the spiritual world.

In truth, the stories in the Torah narrate only the spiritual world. We perceive the spiritual forces as a replication from spirituality. They are depicted in us according to our degree and our perception of the world. This is why it seems to us that we are seeing an entire world with all its details, that the Torah speaks of how we should behave with every detail—favorably or unfavorably—according to the Creator’s will.

The Creator wants to do good to His creations, to raise them to His level. “Return O Israel to the Lord your God” (Hosea, 14:2) means causing them to be like Him—loving and giving. The rule, “love your neighbor as yourself,”[1] is the inclusive rule of the Torah. It is the rule by which we shift from loving others to loving the Creator at the end of our correction.

We need to scrutinize the connection between slaughtering beasts or avoiding certain actions, committing others actions, and Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator, love of God, love of Israel, or love of the whole world. The Torah does not speak of any other corrections but the correction of the heart, as it was written that it was given to men of heart.[2] Hence, all the Mitzvot that are written in the Torah—as Iben Ezra writes in his commentary on the Torah—were made only to correct the heart, meaning man’s desire, inclination. The Torah was intended to bring us into love because initially, our nature is the opposite of love: it includes the evil inclination, envy, lust, and pursuit of honor, as we clearly see in our world.

This is why the Torah is telling us how to correct ourselves, our desires, according to our perception of this world. We cannot correct our ego instantaneously from aiming to receive for myself to aiming to bestow upon others. The numerous corrections we perform on our desires are gradual.

The two portions, Aharei Mot (After the Death) and Kedoshim (Holy), are adjacent and connected because they contain two major corrections. The first is bestowing in order to bestow, as it is written, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend”[3] (Masechet Shabbat, 31a). The second is “love your neighbor as yourself,”[1] which is a more advanced correction.

The first correction is merely avoiding harming others. When we constantly seek our own benefit, the result is always at the expense of others. The first correction was given to a proselyte, to an egoist who wants to be corrected, to rise from the ego, from the “nations of the world within, to the degree of Israel, to a state of “That which you hate, do not do to your friend.”[4] By that we restrict our ego and avoid hurting others. The next stage is the more advanced degree, “love your neighbor as yourself,”[1] which we must achieve.

Following those Mitzvot and corrections, we perceive the world that is depicted in each of the 613 desires that comprise us. When we correct those desires from egoism to wanting to give and to love, we see an opposite world, as it is written, I have seen an upside down world.”[5] We come to see a higher world running by new, completely different rules—of giving, love, and connection. Today not only does the world appear to us as integrally connected, we ourselves are becoming integral, and we relate to the world this way: we include everyone and see everything as one whole.

This is the reason why the two portions are conjoined. The correction in the portion, Aharei Mot, is the correction of emerging from the evil inclination. In the next correction, the one in the portion, Kedoshim, we transcend the evil inclination and raise the desires we have corrected to the next degree. First we seemingly “brush them off,” and now we raise them toward giving, love, to the place of the holy ones.

First we rise above our egoistic will to receive and shift sins into mistakes, and mistakes to Mitzvot (commandments/good deeds/corrections). Next, we correct the sins (that we previously turned into mistakes) into Mitzvot. Now everything works for love.

By treating everyone with absolute love, we reach the love of God. This is the final result where we obtain equivalence with Him, as it is written, “Return O Israel to the Lord your God” (Hosea, 14:2). In other words, we obtain Dvekut (adhesion) with Him. This is the purpose of the corrections, the purpose of creation, of the path we must go through.

Everything begins with the shattering, with feeling the bad, the recognition of evil. This is what Nadav and Avihu did in the previous portion, and this is why the portion is called Aharei Mot (After the Death). All our actions in corrections are built consecutively.

We must not forget that the real corrections are only in our desires. We correct our hearts, and our world is the inanimate world, an imaginary world in which we play like kids in the sand.

Today the world is in a new era, facing a global crisis that must be resolved. This is our “exercise.” If we approach it correctly, as the Torah tells us, we will receive the Torah—its internality—as the Torah of truth, and we will know how to achieve redemption from exile out of the sins we are in. Then we will reach the stage of Aharei Mot, of Kedoshim (holy).

The portion tells of the people of Israel entering the land of Israel. If they follow the laws of the Canaanites, the land will vomit them out. This portion always comes near the Day of Independence, which is odd because we have returned to our land after 2,000 years but it still does not seem as though we are keeping the spiritual laws.

It also does not seem like we have a grip on the land of Israel. We are still “under a question mark” in this land. Perhaps we do not like to admit it, but we are. We are aware that we are still dependent on our neighbors and on the rest of the world. If the whole world should press us now we will have no choice but to do as they say.

The words, “the whole world,” refer to the Creator, the upper force that sets up the conditions by which we will truly repent and begin to actually be the people of Israel in the land of Israel. Ysrael (Israel) comes from YasharEl (straight to God), meaning to resemble the force of bestowal and love, the upper force, which demands of us to be in a state of “love your neighbor as yourself.”

If we achieve brotherly love according to the laws of Arvut (mutual guarantee), the laws of Kabbalah, of integral education—as we circulate them—we will truly gain a grip on the land. Eretz (land) comes from the word Ratzon (desire); it is our innermost desire, the one that determines precisely how attached we are to the ground, to the land of Israel.

It all depends on us. We were given a small portion, and if we cannot live according to this part, a part of us will be cut off, then another part, and then another. It is not because the neighboring countries or the UN have decided anything; it is because we ourselves do not fit in the land of Israel.

Actually, the threat is already there because “the heart of ministers and kings is in the hand of the Lord” (Proverbs, 25:1). If we are in accord with the land of Israel, we will receive it and no one will rule over us. It all depends on our accord with the land of Israel. If we aim our desires toward holiness, as in “You will be holy for I am holy” (Leviticus, 19:2)—holiness means bestowal and love—then there is no doubt we will receive it in this world, too, the whole of the land of Israel. No one will be able to say anything; everyone will agree that we are the ones who truly have to be here in the land. The nation that will live here will be a different one, “The people of Israel,” living according to “love your neighbor as yourself,” as it was prior to the ruin.

Questions and Answers

There is a feeling that although we are officially in our land, we are still in exile.

Yes, this is why it is written that we are a gathering of exiles.

What does it mean that the land vomits the desires out?

If we do not match ourselves with the will of God, with the land of Israel, the land ejects us, rejects us. It is lack of equivalence of form. Equivalence of form is the general law of nature, which determines how suitable and connected we are to the land, to the ground. Equivalence of form exists to the extent that we connect to each other, to the extent that we achieve Arvut between us, unity, brotherly love. If we do not, we do not belong in the land of Israel.

Does this refer to today’s land of Israel? After all, it says “desires,” not people. So is this about desires or about the land?

We are still not in the real land of Israel because we and our desires are still corrupted and negative, even the energy between us. Hence, we do not allow the land of Israel to be fair (beautiful). We still do not feel that our land is blooming.

From The Zohar: Hybrid and Mixing

When the Creator created the world He set up each thing, each one in its side, either to the right or to the left, and appointed higher forces over them. And there is not even a tiny blade of grass in the land on which there is no higher force above in the upper worlds. All that they do in each one, and everything that each one does is all by prevailing of the upper force that is appointed over it above.

We are far behind, but we are now required to be in the degree of the “land of Israel.” What can be changed here? How can we reach the degree of the land of Israel?

If we begin to examine our qualities in relation to others we will see how immersed we are in Egypt, how our ego, our inner Pharaoh, dominates us. We disparage everyone out of envy, lust, and pursuit of honor, and we relate to others only in order to use them. This is exile. It is not a geographical point, but an inner state. We will finally want to emerge from it by connecting to people and beginning to think, “When will I reach my correction, the state of ‘love your neighbor as yourself?’”

When we achieve it, we will begin to advance toward that correction. Then we will see how incapable of it we are. This is the meaning of the land of Israel not belonging to us. We cannot be together in brotherly love, so we must demand of the Creator to correct it. We must shout, pray, show Him our need. Actually, everything we have been through happened so we would perceive our dependence on Him, so we would feel that all corrections depend only on Him.

We are going through all of it on purpose; the Creator made it this way. Otherwise we would forget about Him. When a person turns to the Creator for correction, He comes and “settles in” with the quality of bestowal and love between us. We progress and discover Him between us, meaning discover the upper world.

This is the upper system in the spiritual world between us, to which we arrive upon our correction. And because our desire was corrected due to the presence of the Creator, it is now in the land of Israel, a state of redemption called the “land of Israel.” Previously, it was in Babylon, the land of Canaan, Egypt, and a desert. The land of Israel is a state of connection between us, which the Creator fills.

We often speak of a spiritual connection. Are the things we talked about spiritual things, including the land of Israel?

Everything is within us and between us.

Why do we hear that the Creator does not judge the children of Israel on anything regarding this world, yet they are punished in this world?

They are judged because we must return to the spiritual degree we held prior to the ruin of the Temple.

Even though we always thought that the Creator does not “keep score” with us in this world?

The ARI begins his book, Tree of Life, explaining that “The upper, simple light fills the whole reality.” Likewise, it is written, “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi, 3:6), and “He has given a law, and it shall not be breached” (Psalms, 148:6). There is a constant state by which we should measure ourselves. It is an absolute state love and tight connection among everyone, not just among the children of Israel, as it was before, but throughout the world. We are the “chosen people,” the ones who must be “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6). First we must achieve that state, then we must set an example to the rest of the world.

From The Zohar: Ah, land of the buzzing of wings

“Ah, land of the buzzing of wings.” When the Creator created the world and wished to reveal the depths out of the hidden and light out of darkness, they mingled in one another. Because of it, Light came out of darkness, and the deep came out and appeared out of the hidden; one came out of the other. And from the good, out came bad; from mercy, out came judgment, and all was included in one another.

Following the shattering everything became mixed. Now after the ruin we must distinguish between good and bad, light and darkness, and thus build ourselves. Our view of the world and the relations between us all result from the scrutiny. The ruin is in our favor because by correcting it we build ourselves, just as a children build with LEGO bricks and thus learn.

“Holy” is the highest degree, as it is written (Leviticus, 19:2), “You shall be holy for I the Lord your God am holy.” This means that a person transcends the ego and avoids using it, unless it is for others’ benefit. Bestowing in order to bestow is the first stage. The second stage is receiving in order to bestow. The first stage is as Hillel says, “That which you hate, do not do to your friend” (Masechet Shabbat, 31a). That is, do not harm others. This is the beginning of corrections. But once you have achieved it you can accept the others’ desires and begin to serve them, fulfill them. This is called “love.”

That is, Aharei Mot is a precondition for Kedoshim?

Certainly, these are two stages of the correction of Galgalta and Eynaim of the soul, and the correction of the AHP of the soul. There are two kinds of Kelim in which there are positive or negative Mitzvot (commandments to do something or avoid doing something) from the Torah. Each Mitzva is an act of rising above the ego, of benefiting others, or at least not harming others. These are all the 613 Mitzvot—248, and 365.

Is there a special connection between the Creator and the people of Israel? Why are they holy? Is it just because He is holy?

Man needs the upper light in order to rise above the ego and bestow upon others. We have no force of bestowal of our own because we consist purely of “reception-only” substance. We can give only if the upper light shines on us, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice” because “the light in it reforms.”[6] Thus, the Creator illuminates that quality for us, raises us above the ego, and all we need is to want it. The actions come from above, which is why they are called “the work of God,” since the Creator is the one who does the work. However, He works only on our invitation.

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Tazria (When a Woman Delivers), we learn about laws related to a woman who has delivered. If she delivers a boy, she is considered impure for seven days. On the eighth day the boy is circumcised and the woman begins a 33 day purification period. If the woman delivers a girl she is considered impure for fourteen days, and the purification period lasts 66 days.

The portion also details rules concerning afflictions. A person who is infected with something must come to the priest, who diagnoses the sore and knows the rules concerning each of them.

The portion, Metzorah (The Leper), is dedicated to the rules concerning leprosy, and what to do when one has been infected with it. A leper who has healed must be examined by the priest, then bring two birds. The priest slaughters one bird and dips the other in clean water.

The end of the portion discusses the impurity of nocturnal ejaculation and the rules concerning a woman in menstruation—anyone who touches her is impure until the evening.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Why are the rules in the portions described in such detail?

The whole Torah is an instruction by which to correct our nature. Man was deliberately created with an egoistic desire; this is why we want everything for our own good, as it is written, “For the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). Creation itself is the evil inclination, the sum of our negative qualities. The inanimate nature, the vegetative, and the animate around us are completely neutral—neither good nor bad. It is managed by the laws of nature that act instinctively on all its elements.

But man has free choice, and therefore uses the ego to others’ harm. Such is the software from which we are built. We constantly examine ourselves in relation to others—if we are worse or better off they are. This is how human nature constantly operates us with the thought, “How can I benefit myself or harm others?” One who does not see it is unaware of this law.

The Torah indicates and explains how to correct ourselves, how to transform us from a form that is the opposite of the form of the Creator, and into a corrected and complete form. This is why we cannot see the upper worlds, the upper force, the eternity and perfection we are in, and which is hidden from us. We can only see a tiny sphere known as “this world.” In this world there is nothing but a set time in which we exist, then leave, just like animals. We incarnate from above, descending from the upper world and back up, unaware of the rest of the stages in our development.

The Torah tells us how we can correct ourselves so we may begin to discover ourselves in our eternal and complete form. The Torah shows us how we should work in order to discover the eternal, perfect world, and exit the sensation of exile we are in, toward a good and enlightened world.

The two portions indicate all the corrections we must do. Tazria and Metzorah detail how one can correct the egoistic, corrupt signs we constantly discover in ourselves.

It is written in Tazria that birth is a good thing, a new degree. The one who can deliver is the desire that craves birth, in order to turn itself to bestowal. When that desire can deliver from the woman the male part in her, all the surpluses of the will to receive that cannot be corrected are secreted as birth-blood, impure blood.

At that time a person is called a “woman,” though it may well be a man. It depends on whether one is in a state of reception or bestowal. If a person delivers out of oneself an act of bestowal, that person is called a “woman,” who delivers a child. Then a person is told what to do with all that did not come out in this act, called a “newborn.” Thus, those desires that he or she used but which still could not be corrected come out as blood, as various secretions, as it happens in a physical birth. After some time these desires return and become corrected on higher degrees.

Accordingly, after delivering a boy we undergo seven days of Tuma’a (impurity), a circumcision on the eighth, and the thirty-three days of purification. After delivering a girl we undergo sixty-six days of purification. These are special corrections. Once we have corrected these desires through a special act called Korban (sacrifice/offering), we perform an act in order to bestow in which we sacrifice, meaning bring ourselves closer to bestowal upon the Creator, according to the law of equivalence of form in order to become more similar to the Creator. This is how we progress another step in the correction.

Here the corrections are in the tiny revelations of all the forms of the egoistic desire, which appears through leprosy, and through other problems that encounter us in our homes and our animals, namely in all the degrees, meaning desires of still, vegetative, and animate.

The portion, Metzorah, details the corrections performed by the priest. We begin to discern forces in our inner structure that help us from experience—from previous corrections—to correct ourselves in all the qualities that appear as bad.

The portion speaks of a man who brings himself or his wife to the priest. The portion details how to correct the “dresses” over the soul, which are called “garments.” The clothing is called Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light) or OhrHassadim (light of mercy), meaning an intention to bestow. Although we are born with egoistic desires, if we “clothe” them with the aim to bestow and want to perform acts of bestowal, we will thus correct our “garments.” The highest degree in this correction is to clean the clothes and show them to the priest for his examination. This is the meaning of the relation between the degrees in the upper system.

In this manner we advance in our corrected desires toward the revelation of the upper world, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”[1]

We are constantly developing and discovering the world. We feel more and more included in something eternal and complete. A person lives in this world as an animate body, yet discover the eternal part within, which is called the “soul.” We identify with that part because it is much greater and more powerful than the animate part. That sympathy causes us to feel that our animate part is like a domesticated animal we keep in the yard, and it makes no difference whether it is dead or alive because the self, the human we have raised within, which we have built in similarity with the Creator, is as eternal and complete as Him.

All this is done through work by which we discover all that is still not “clean” in us. We clean ourselves from all the ill thoughts and intentions, which aim for our own benefit and to others’ detriment. With each correction and cleansing we become increasingly similar to the Creator.

The two portions are connected. One speaks of a quality called “woman,” and the other of a leper. What is a woman? What is a leper? And what is the connection between them?

In our perception, “man is a small world.”[2] Within us is a special force that “paints” an image in the back of our minds, in our awareness and consciousness, that there is a world before us, outside of us. But if our senses suddenly stop working we will not perceive any world. If one of our senses disappeared, such as sight or hearing, part of our perception would disappear as well.

The world is a product of our senses, which depict within us a certain reality. That reality has nothing to do with what is actually happening outside. If we study animals that live near us we will find that they perceive our world very differently. A dog’s world, for example, is full of scents. Dogs perceive the world through their sense of smell. They have no problem discerning things using that sense. Snakes perceive their world through temperature, distinguishing each element with great accuracy. 97% of the perception of our world depends on our vision. Thus, each one has a different picture of reality, but it is still a picture of reality.

When we attain the perception of the actual reality, the sixth sense opens in us. We begin to see the upper force, the upper world alongside this world. The upper world is present here and now. We need not die in order to perceive it. Our death changes nothing in this case. Also, we begin to discover that the world is very different from what we previously imagined. This is why it is written about our world that it is imaginary: “I saw an upside down world.”[3]

We attain the true perception through all those corrections that appear in the portions before us, when we correct our desires into having the intention to bestow more and more. If we use our desires with the aim to receive, we constantly absorb everything our tiny and limited tools of perception depict for us. But when we come out of ourselves into the endless frequencies beyond those of our eyes and ears, whose range is very limited, we enter the sense called “in order to bestow,” the “sense of giving and love.” In that state we find an unbounded reality, as though we have emerged from our skin, as it is written, “After my skin they lifted it” (Job, 19:26). Then the reality we begin to see is not limited to the five physical senses, but is the actual reality, the upper world that the Torah describes.

In that new sense, what is a woman who delivers, and what is a leper?

A woman who delivers is a correction of one of the senses, thus achieving new attainment, new bestowal, in which we discover another new world. Yet, we cannot use these forces for correction in order to bestow, a limitation formed by the contrast in it. We perceive everything through opposites. As creatures, we always see one thing opposite another. When we have only one color, or something without an opposite, or something for which we have no scale by which to measure or compare, we cannot see or feel it. If there is no black and white situation, we cannot see black, white, or yellow.

The revelation of our correction is always under limitations. The boundary gives us a sense of orientation, that we are in something, gripping something. Otherwise we have no idea what is permitted and what is forbidden. In that state everything is completely amorphous and our sensations disappear.

The woman is the one who gives birth. The Creator could have created a man who can give birth; why did He create only women with the ability to give birth?

A woman is called the “will to receive.” The man is called the “intention to bestow.” Therefore, the man assists with the birth; it cannot happen without him. The man gives only a drop, from which the woman raises the newborn. The man begets only the will to receive through the correction he performs on himself. These corrections are called “nine months of labor.”

In Baal HaSulam’s book, The Study of the Ten Sephirot, as in the whole of the wisdom of Kabbalah, we learn about this form, in which we grow and put ourselves by ourselves into a complicated situation, the upper womb—a situation in which we can grow. We are assisting our growth inside the womb. It is great work that we do in order to adapt ourselves to the degree of the Creator until we are similar to Him, and then we are born. However, each of us has a personal reality, the stage of adulthood, opposite the stage of Katnut (infancy). The rest of the stages continue until we achieve the complete level.

So a woman symbolizes the will to receive and a man symbolizes the desire to bestow?

Yes.

Are matters arranged from above in a way that the will to receive is the only one that can deliver, while the man, who is bestowal, cannot?

The man provides the future form of bestowal. Were it not for the force of bestowal, the woman would not be able to deliver. If there is no expansion to the will to receive itself through the force of bestowal, it will not be able to give birth to anything.

The portion, Metzorah, deals with skin infections. Why specifically the skin, there are many other afflictions?

The skin is our place of scrutiny. Our desires consist of five degrees: Mocha (marrow), Atzamot (bones), Gidin (tendons), Bassar (flesh), and Or (skin). The Or desire contains seven layers; it is the final, crudest desire. This is why it is where we scrutinize our egoistic intentions, our ability to correct, and how.

We correct a part of the skin by writing a book of Torah on leather. There is a parchment of leather that we cut in the middle, and write the letters of the book of Torah on the outer part. We separate the part that cannot be corrected. This part will be corrected only at the end of correction, when there are no limitations and no letters. The actual revelation of the Creator is on the last, most egoistic degree that can be corrected.

Does leprosy symbolize inappropriate use of this concept?

Leprosy symbolizes the revelation of the boundary, the place of recognition of evil that a person corrects through the force within—the great force of bestowal called “priest.”

The Torah is dealing with a disease that is still today incurable.

All skin diseases are hard to cure. We suffer from them our whole life. It happens because the skin is the last degree of the body, so it is very difficult for us to influence it. We treat it as the ending of the body, an outer cover of our internal organs, but the skin is just like the heart, lungs, and kidneys. It is an organ in and of itself, which we have yet to comprehend.

When we weigh the skin we find it is the heaviest organ in the body. Also, we cannot live without it.

True. We can see it with the problems that people who suffered serious burns have. It is an offshoot of spirituality, where the corrections on this degree are the hardest. It is Malchut at its conclusion.

Is the skin “curable” or is it a chronic disease?

Only at the end of correction, when we have corrected everything, will we be able to correct the skin, as well. Then the light will shine in Aleph through the whole structure known as Adam, as well as inside the skin, in the letter Ayin.

“He took for the purification two live, pure birds, and a cedar tree, and scarlet, and hyssop.” One who engages in the work of one’s master and engages in the Torah, the Creator is over him and the Shechina (Divinity) connects with him. When one comes to be defiled, the Shechina departs from him, the Creator departs from him, and all the side of Kedusha (holiness) of his master departs from him. Then the spirit of Tuma’a (impurity) and the whole side of Tuma’a are on him. If he comes to be purified; he is aided. Once he has purified and repented, what has departed him returns to him, and the Creator and His Shechina are on him.

Zoharfor All, Metzorah (The Leper), item 18

This concerns a person who has come to be purified. The person brings two different birds, as well as part of a tree, through certain people. This is how we correct through our own forces, the desires that appear on the road to correction. Such people must discover the desires that require correction and correct them.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/04/tazria-woman-delivers-metzorah-leper-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-2/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/04/tazria-woman-delivers-metzorah-leper-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-2/Shmini (On the Eighth Day) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/ofi9OlDNlwg/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/04/shmini-eighth-day-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/#respondSun, 12 Apr 2020 03:00:20 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=5999Leviticus, 9:1-11:47 This Week’s Torah Portion | Apr 12 – Apr 18, 2020 – 18 Nissan – 24 Nissan, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, Shmini (On the Eighth Day), deals with the events of the eighth day after the seven days of filling.[1] This is the inauguration day of the tabernacle. Aaron and his sons offer special sacrifices on […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, Shmini (On the Eighth Day), deals with the events of the eighth day after the seven days of filling.[1] This is the inauguration day of the tabernacle. Aaron and his sons offer special sacrifices on this day. Moses and Aaron go to bless the people, and finally, the Creator appears to the people of Israel.

Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu sin with offering on a foreign fire, and the fire consumes them. Aaron and the remaining sons receive special instructions how to conduct themselves in the situation, and among others orders, they are forbidden to mourn.

The portion tells of another misunderstanding between Moses and Aaron and his sons concerning eating the sin offering. The portion ends with the rules concerning forbidden food, detailing the animals, beasts, poultry, and fish that are forbidden to eat. Rules of Tuma’a (impurity) and Taharah (purity) are also briefly explained.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion mentions many details concerning the tabernacle and offering sacrifices, what is forbidden and what is permitted. How should we understand it internally?

We need to examine which of our 613 desires we need to correct, and how. It was said about man, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,”[2] so we may correct our evil inclination—the egoistic desires—in which we think only of ourselves and cannot perform a single act of giving and love of others.

It is written, “love your neighbor as yourself.”[3] This is a special force, and the Torah was given for the sole purpose of obtaining it. If we study the internality of the Torah properly—namely Kabbalah, the wisdom of light, we draw the light that reforms, which corrects us.

The desires in us are called the “evil inclination.” Initially, they are egoistic because “the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). Our goal is to correct it through the study and turn it to the intention to bestow upon others, to the aim to connect and love. By correcting ourselves we obtain the quality of bestowal, equivalence with the Creator and Dvekut (adhesion) with Him in order to be like Him. This is the purpose of man’s creation—to be like the Creator.

To correct our desires, our inclination, we must follow a certain order from easy to hard. To properly correct our nature we are required to conduct ourselves according to our development. Like an infant that grows into being a small child, then a youth, and finally an adult, each stage in the development requires more actions and greater complexity. At each stage we draw the light that reforms. It sorts for us by order of difficulty the desires whose time for correction has come. This is why the Torah is called Horaa (instruction), as through it we advance and climb the ladder of degrees through the end of correction of all our desires.

In the portion, Shmini, we scrutinize which desires we can correct, how we can correct them, and which desires we cannot correct. Within us are desires that cannot be corrected. They are called the “stony heart.” These desires are the basis of our nature. They are so intense that we cannot even ask for their correction.

By correcting what we must, and by regretting not being able to correct the stony heart, as well as by distinguishing what is correctable and what is beyond our ability to correct, we gain a clear perception of the difference between them. By regretting that we cannot correct, yet doing all we can in regard to these desires, they become corrected.

This is why the laws of Kedusha (holiness) and Tahara (purity) are called “laws of Kashrut (the noun of the adjective, Kosher).” We scrutinize these laws—what is kosher and what is not—in the still, vegetative, animate, and human, how we should perform them and at what level.

The word Kashrut refers to the word Kosher (“permitted,” “proper,” “lawful”), to the readiness for bestowal. A kosher person has corrected him or herself in all the desires to bestowal and love of others, at least on a certain level.

The measure of the desire is the sum of all the desires in us at the levels of still, vegetative, and animate. The more the desire mingles with emotion, reason, understanding, connection with people, and with the upper force, the more we correct it. The laws of Kashrut tell us how to sanctity, how to bring each desire to correction and use it to bestow. The Torah tells us through examples from our world, like using the desire for food, which actually refers to man’s correction.

We are bound to fail. It is like a child who cannot understand how a new toy works until he breaks it. He does not even understand that he broke it, or how, if at all, is it possible to fix it. As long as the child does not fully comprehend the making of the toy—how it was made, and what is the role of each part and wheel—the child will not become attached to it.

Similarly, we must comprehend the foundations of creation, touch our most basic, egoistic desires, as it is written, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and did not sin” (Ecclesiastes, 7:20). We must experience all the sins, fail, and correct them. There is no other way.

We must recognize all the evil in us, as the Creator says, “I have created the evil inclination.” Man is the one who must discover where our evil inclination resides. When we discover it, we are considered “wicked,” “transgressors.” We recognize the evil and we regret it.

However, we do not regret the recognition of the evil within us because this is how we were made. Rather, we regret that our inclination is not to bestow, but to receive for ourselves. We demand the correcting force, and receive from the above the light that reforms, thus shifting from using each desire egoistically, looking for self-gratification, to the seeking the benefit of others. This is how we correct ourselves.

The general recognition of the evil inclination occurs by the breaking of the vessels in the upper worlds. This is our root, from which this world was created. It was prepared in the upper roots, the upper system. It is embedded in the foundation of the nation, in the acts of Nadav and Avihu, as mentioned in this portion. We have to discover it in us in this world.

Nadav and Avihu had to go through this process, and by so doing they did a great thing. It may seem to us as transgression or ruin, but in it we discover the foundation of “I have created the evil inclination” and correct it.

Nadav and Avihu wanted to reach the end of correction instantaneously. When a person does so, he or she discovers the will to receive in order to receive, the evil inclination, Sitra Achra, Klipa (shell/peel), in its true, and worst form. This is what they did; they drew such a powerful light on themselves that they could not resist it and receive in order to bestow, so they received it in order to receive and therefore died.

A person who advances on the degrees does so, too. In us, too, are forces called Nadav and Avihu, in addition to the forces of Aaron and Moses. “Man is a small world,”[4] and all that is told in the Torah exists in each and every one of us. We make the same transgressions and correct them after some time. This is how we become aware of the real evil inclination, the stony heart, which cannot be touched. This is how we learn to correct the desires that can be corrected, and the right order of correction.

The laws of Kashrut at the end of the portion stem from all those scrutinies we make. They explain to us how we can correct, and in which way we can bring the incense. That is, how to bring the desires that are properly mingled—the forces of bestowal and reception within us—so they correct one another.

This is what the portion, Shmini (On the Eighth Day) deals with. It is called so because Malchut that ascends to Yesod is the eighth Malchut, and we must know how to correct it. It is called “Eighth” after the basic correction, to distinguish between the parts of Malchut that cannot be corrected and those that can be, and to know how we can draw the forces that will correct. We scrutinize all that on our spiritual path, in a correction called Shmini.

The number 7 appears many times in this portion. Is there a special meaning to it?

It is written that there are six days of work and the seventh is the Sabbath.[5] The six days are Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod. Days are degrees by which we can correct our desires. The seventh day is Malchut that is corrected by itself by what we have done during the six degrees, and by drawing the lights. In fact, all corrections are made on the seventh day.

The Sabbath is actually not a day of rest. It is a state where it is no longer possible to scrutinize and arrange anything. Instead, “One who labored on the Sabbath Eve shall eat on the Sabbath.”[6] Only what we do during the six days enters Malchut and is corrected in Malchut, in our Yesod (also “foundation”), in our substance, our meaning desires.

The eighth is the reception of the quality of Aaron, quality of Bina, as it is written, “Sons of Bina, eight days.”[7]Malchut connects to Bina, from whom we draw the correcting force on the eighth day.

The upper system is called Zeir Anpin, or HaKadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One Blessed Be He). It is the system that corrects us, the clothing Malchut, which ties to the upper system. In other words, our soul connects to the Creator.

The soul is also called the “Assembly of Israel” because it assembles all the souls that desire correction. This is how we come to the eighth. Here we must be careful when we encounter situations such as with Nadav and Avihu, but we will still have to experience them.

As was already mentioned, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and did not sin” (Ecclesiastes, 7:20). This means that we will encounter many more scrutinies on our way, following our roots, and following what had happened to our forefathers. After all the corrections and exiles we have been through, we arrive at the disclosure and know how to continue. Additionally, we will have good instructions from the wisdom of Kabbalah, so when we face demanding scrutinies we will go through them quickly and continue.

Regarding the example of Nadav and Avihu, we always want our children not to make mistakes, but this shows us that mistakes are mandatory?

Without being aware of it we constantly lead our children to mistakes. And not only children; even university students about to become PhDs learn by being presented with problems. The learning process itself actually involves solving problems. We present the children with problems and want them to play and resolve it. Alternatively, we give them something to assemble or give them exercises in math, physics, or chemistry. We constantly challenge them with problems.

When our children grow and become youths or young adults, we still worry that they might make mistakes. How do we raise children that will not act on their intense desires, as did Nadav and Avihu, who were burned for it?

Children learn what to do, how to do it—and if they should do it at all—only by trial and error. Similarly, we have to try and err. We have to discover the shattering, the crisis, our nature, or we will not know how to correct it. This is why we were given the Torah, whose light shines for us and clarifies matters.

There is light for the scrutiny of the Kelim (vessels), and there is light for the correction of the Kelim. If we know how to use our Kelim (desires) correctly, we will go through the corrections quickly and pleasantly. If each time we encounter a corruption we will also know that we can fix it, and specifically this way discover another portion of the spiritual world, our eternity, perfection, there is no doubt we will be happy by the appearance of that corruption.

In relation to education, when we see our children make mistakes and correct themselves, should we view it as something good?

Yes. There are customs where we act joyfully (even on the Day of Atonement [Yom Kippur]), as opposed to the sadness in other customs. The differences stem from misunderstanding what we are discovering. In truth, there is something to each of the expressions of the customs. In each revelation of evil there must be joy, too, since we have the means to correct it and achieve contentment. It is impossible to feel good without discovering and correcting the bad.

It is written that everyone will know the difference between the rules of Tuma’a (impurity)and Tahara (purity), and that at the time of the First Temple, every child from six years old knew those laws. What does it mean?

This does not refer to children in the physical sense of the word, although that was the prevailing type of education then and children did grow with understanding, sensation, and perception of the upper force. They received upbringing that brought them to bestowal and opening of the eyes. Besides this world, which they saw through their five physical senses, they were assisted in developing a sixth sense, called Neshama (soul). With that sense they experienced the upper force and therefore knew what was good and what was bad. They could distinguish between them and thus grow.

Everything depends on the environment. The environment educated children toward corrections, and each child whose ego (will to receive) grew received the appropriate education. Education is a system of correction through the environment, of explanation and support, as our desires grow. Education means teaching children that their desires are constantly growing and should be used in order to bestow, for love.

Can such education be established today, as well?

It will happen anyway because nature is obliging us to do it. We are heading toward a state where we will have to instill this type of education throughout the world, not just for us, but for the entire nation and the entire world. We need to be “a light for the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6), and pass on the method, “for My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ for all the nations” (Isaiah, 56:7) so they will all be as one bundle.

Today we are in the last exile, preceding the complete redemption. Therefore, we must first bring this education to the people of Israel, and subsequently to the rest of the world. We are in advanced stages on this path. The crisis we are experiencing, the helplessness in education, and the collapse of the family institution were all intended to open our eyes to big changes.

Does that mean that the crisis was meant to make us ask for a solution on a higher level?

Yes. The solution already exists, and it is simple. We must understand that there is no other choice, that we have an easy and effective means to obtain bounty and happiness, especially with our children. Otherwise, what kind of world are we leaving for our children?

Once a person has sorted all of one’s Kelim in mind and heart, meaning in one’s desires, thoughts, and intentions, that person can work with these Kelim in full power. This is called the “inauguration of the tabernacle.” One brings them as offerings when they are scrutinized.

The offerings are all the desires that a person can turn from aiming to receive, from egoistic (evil inclination), to aiming to bestow, to the form of bestowal and love. This is the correction. By correcting more and more of one’s desires to bestowal and love, we draw closer to the Creator. The word Korban (sacrifice/offering) comes from the word Karov (near/close), and Makriv (bringing near/offering/sacrificing). This is man’s primary work. So the inauguration of the tabernacle means that one has prepared the Kelim with which one can begin to work.

Does being in the light, in the day, refer to a state that is opposite from the night?

It is written (Psalms, 36:10), “By Your light we shall see light.” Once we have corrected ourselves in the degree of desiring mercy—bestowing in order to bestow, the degree of Aaron—we correct our desires that are not in reception in order to bestow. We move from constantly wanting to receive for ourselves in all our desires to a state where what is happening is clear to us and we neutralize those desires into a point where we do not want to use them for our own sake, since that would literally destroy and “burn” our soul. Preparing ourselves, this is the tabernacle. Henceforth we begin to correct these desires in order to bestow.

[1] “You shall not go outside the doorway of the tent of meeting for seven days, until the day that the period of your ordination is fulfilled; for he will ordain you through seven days” (Leviticus, 8:33).[2] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Kidushin, 30b.[3] Jerusalem Talmud, Seder Nashim, Masechet Nedarim, Chapter 9, p 30b.[4] Midrash Tanchuma, Pekudei, item 3.[5] “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a sabbath to the Lord in all your dwellings” (Leviticus, 23:3).[6] Babylonian Talmud, Masechet Avodah Zarah, p 3a.[7] As sung in the Hanukah song, Maoz Tzur.

In A Nutshell

The portion, Tzav (Command), deals with rules of sacrificing, especially those related to priests. The portion mentions the commandment to donate the fertilizer, the gift offering, sin offering, guilt offering, peace offering, and the prohibition to eat animal fat.

Tzav also mentions punishments for those who eat non-kosher meat, as it is written, “The soul that eats from it shall bear iniquity (Leviticus, 7:18). One who eats fat from the offerings, “The soul that eats shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:25), and one who eats the offerings’ blood, “That soul shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:20).

Subsequently, the portion deals with the seven days of filling, and the inauguration of the tabernacle. The Creator commands Moses to assemble Aaron and his sons the priests, and the whole congregation at the door of the tent of meeting. Moses washes Aaron and his sons and dresses them with the clothes of priesthood. Moses puts the anointing oil over the tabernacle and all that is in it, and sanctifies Aaron and his sons, showing the priests—following the Creator’s command—what to do with the various organs of the offerings.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The Korban (offering/sacrifice, from the word, Karov [near]) is the way to draw near the Creator. There is nothing but the offerings. Today we are in the worst state. There is nothing worse than this world and our current state. We must come out of that state and advance toward the Boreh (Creator), from the words Bo Re’eh (come and see). We will discover the Creator according to the changes and corrections in us because the upper force, namely the upper light, is in complete rest, and all the changes occur in us, as it is written, “I the Lord do not change” (Malachi, 3:6).

Nearing the Creator depends on our qualities. Therefore, we must all change ourselves and correct all the negative and egoistic desires in us, according to the order the Torah narrates. The word Torah comes from the word Horaa (instruction) how to correct our egoistic desires, turn them into aiming toward bestowal and love, and shift from unfounded hatred to absolute love.

The bad global crisis is happening due to unfounded hatred among everyone. There is abundance in the world, but we cannot share it among us. We cannot establish social justice, connection, unity, and arrange ourselves and our lives better because of our characters, as it is written, “The inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). To correct the heart, which symbolizes our 613 egoistic, corrupted desires, we need the Torah.

The Torah is the “light that reforms.”[1] One who treats the Torah properly discovers one’s wickedness, as it is written, “The world was created only for the complete wicked or the complete righteous.”[2] That is, we must discover that we are completely wicked, created with an evil inclination. Then, “I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[3] because “the light in it reforms them.”[4] Then we come to a state of complete righteous. This is how we must see it.

The word Tzav means commandment. We can go through the process by a path of suffering, taking blows. This way is neither respectable nor desirable in the eyes of the Creator or the creatures. But there is another way. We can go through the process recognizing and understanding that we are being led to discover the upper force, and we are being raised to a higher dimension. The crisis and the suffering we feel in this world were intended to push us to develop to a higher level, the human one, which resembles the Creator.

There are many stages in this work. Some stages are called “the nations of the world,” and in them we scrutinize our desires and slightly correct them on the level of “nations of the world,” in whom there are seven Mitzvot (commandments). Only then we reach the degree of Israel, meaning YasharEl (straight to the Creator) where we can already direct ourselves toward the Creator.

Keeping, or observing Mitzvot (in Hebrew it is described as “making”) means performing corrections on our desires. From the 613 desires that belong to the work of Israel we achieve the degree of Levites and the degree of priests. Thus we go through the Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey from below upward, from Malchut through Zeir Anpin, Bina, Hochma, and Keter until we achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator.

This is the entire order of the work that the Torah describes, and is presented in the Babylonian Talmud. The offerings are a more complicated issue. It is in fact our entire work. Making an offering means nearing the Creator through consecutive corrections on our desires. We gradually approach the Creator with corrections that begin with the easiest desires and continue through the hardest, heaviest, and most egoistic ones.

These are desires that we sort within us and determine how to correct them. This is why the text mentions body parts, oil, time, movement, places, and a mention of the force by which we correct, and in what state. We must also keep in mind that it all concerns only our inner structure.

We are immersed in an ocean of upper light, which is the Creator, as it is written, “The upper light is in complete rest,”[5] and all the changes appear only to us, who are inside the light. If we do not feel that the light, the Creator, is filling the whole of reality, it means we are in “double concealment.” That is, we have no sensation that something is hidden from us. The first degree we reach is the sensation of concealment, that something is hidden from us.

Today the whole of humanity is beginning to perceive it. Scientists and psychologists are beginning to see that the world is round. They speak of a single force that closes in on us and controls us, that there is a unified guidance and governance, and the world is tied in harmony by fixed laws.

It is written, “He has given a law that shall not be broken” (Psalms, 148:6). Like it or not, we will eventually have to approach that law, study it, replicate it to ourselves, and keep it. If we want it, good. If we do not, we will be forced to accept it by blows, as many stories in the Torah describe.

The Torah tells us about bad things that will ostensibly happen if we do not do what we should. It is necessary to have the recognition of evil and its disclosure. It is written, “I have created the evil inclination,”[6] so each time the evil inclination must appear, and we must correct it. We can discern the evil inclination only if we fall into it. But if we come prepared we will not mingle with it or fall under it, but control it and correct it. This is actually why we were given the Torah.

The whole world is approaching that recognition. Many scientists already maintain that we exist in a circular system, that there is one force of nature that is acting on us and demands that we adapt ourselves to it in a global and integral world, in harmony and balance with nature. They are already talking about holism and other such phenomena, so there are already some excitement and impressions, and approaching the truth.

First we must obtain the recognition that there is truly something hidden from us. This is considered “concealment,” and it is good; it is the sensation of exile. When we are in exile, we feel it by the contact with the upper force that controls us and acts on us. It is so although we do not feel how it works or how it controls us; we do not understand its commands nor know what it wants of us. In fact, even if we did, we would not know how to do its will, we would be incapable of improving our situation. Internally, we recognize that if we do not know it, it will be a terrible loss. The whole world is gradually advancing toward this recognition and understanding.

Questions and Answers

When we say “Him,” are we referring to a superior law or to the Creator?

We are not referring to an image, but to a comprehensive quality that governs us—the quality of comprehensive bestowal and love. The closer we come to it, the better we can detect it.

We draw near it by establishing good connections between us, as it is written, “From the love of man to the love of God.”[7] If we establish groups for teaching the higher nature, in order to become closer and be in brotherly love, we will begin to feel the upper force according to the law of equivalence of form, namely equivalence of qualities. Then we will discover that we truly are in exile. This is the beginning of the process. Hence, when we read the story of Esther we discover the concealment, which is the first step.

As we approach Passover, a state where we feel we are in Egypt, exiled from the revelation of the light, the upper force, we have the “great Sabbath,” which stresses the importance of the sensation of exile, as it is impossible to achieve redemption without that feeling. The difference between Galut (exile) and Geula (redemption) is in the letter Aleph, representing the Aluf (Champion) of the world, in which the Creator appears. Exile is the desire to discover Him, that it is Him we must attain.

When we want to discover the Creator, we bring all our desires to a state where they do not stand in the way of the upper light, as it is written, “His glory fills the world.”[8] He fills everything without our interruption. When we restrict our sense of self-importance—the ego, independence, and sense of uniqueness, our entire “I”—we feel that the Creator passes through us. Thus we discover Him.

But first we have to be “transparent” and avoid being a partition, interfering with the quality of bestowal and love that prevails in the world. Then we discover that we truly are immersed in the upper light that fills everything, and we are in it. This is the degree we should achieve. It is the first stage of redemption.

The nearing happens in our feelings. We come to feel we are inside the upper light that fills everything and does everything, as it is written, “He did, does, and will do all the deeds.”[9] This is our salvation from all the crises, despair, and confusion in our lives.

The offering is to the Creator. We burn it, and thus seemingly give something. Why do we not offer to each other in order to draw closer? This way we could really say that through love of others we obtain something higher.

It only seems that way because of how we use our language. In the work of the offerings, a person needs to work with each egoistic desire that repels others, desires with which one wishes to exploit others and be oblivious to them. The sacrifice is to stop that desire from hindering our approach to others.

As we approach others, we create a system of mutual bestowal and discover the upper light. The upper light is between us, not in us individually. We draw it and discover it precisely by creating the quality of bestowal between us.

Does this nearing take place among the friends in the group?

The nearing is between people, not within us. Within us we can only feel egoistic phenomena. This is why we currently feel only this world through our five physical senses.

How does one offer a sacrifice from the group to the Creator?

It is the same whether one corrects one’s desires toward others or toward the Creator. We all perform the correction together, among us, to reveal the comprehensive quality of bestowal and love that prevails in the world.

The quality of bestowal is the Creator. It is a quality, the thought of creation. We do not aim toward a certain entity. It is difficult to explain it because in our world everything is very “down to earth,” clothed in matter, while in the wisdom of Kabbalah there is no substance, only forces.

It is written in this portion that if the children of Israel do not make the offering properly they will be punished. What is the punishment?

The punishment is that we will do it regardless, as it is written, “For no banished shall be cast out from Him” (Samuel 2, 14:14), and everything will return to its root.

It is written in the portion, “that soul shall be cut off from its people” (Leviticus, 7:20). What does it mean?

It means that a person is cut off from one’s degree. If that person was already on the level of “Israel” (Hebrew: Ysrael), meaning YasharEl (straight to God), and falls from it to the degree of “nations of the world,” that person will suffer because he or she has moved away from bestowal, love, revelation, understanding, and awareness. Hence, one must spend more time searching in an unpleasant way, and only then will he or she return. This is the punishment.

When one cannot process the information properly and quickly through working on the desire with the mind, as the Torah invites us to do, it still happens but on a path of suffering. That person will do the same work but it will take longer and will be unpleasant. Similarly, if children listen to what they are told and do what they are asked well, they benefit. If they do not, they still do their chores, they have no choice, but they suffer.

How can we use the topic of offerings in our approach to education?

There is no difference. If a person is born lazy and stubborn, can he or she turn to the parents and tell them, “You have made me this way; I don’t want to study; I don’t want to listen to you; all I want is to play, that’s the way I am. Did I ask for these qualities? No, there is nothing I can do.”

Is it the parents’ fault or the person’s? What that person can do is form an environment that will help him or her be smart and successful. The environment can help us understand the purpose of creation, how to achieve it, and how to diminish suffering. Everything depends on the environment. If we work in a proper, good, supportive environment, it teaches us how to be givers, like it. This is how we approach bestowal and love. This is the work of the offerings that a person performs.

The portion speaks of priests, which indicate a very high degree. Can matters be attributed to education on this level, too?

We begin from zero, from the degree of “nations of the world. Everyone is destined to achieve it. The purpose of creation is for everyone to come into this work, correct themselves, and reach the complete end of correction, called “complete redemption.” In the First Temple, the people of Israel were already at the level of redemption, Mochin of Haya. In the Second Temple we descended to the level of Mochin of Neshama. Now we must come to the Third Temple, the highest degree on the ladder of spiritual degrees, where we include the whole of humanity.

If the sacrifice means coming closer to society, do we incorporate education in it, or is it a separate matter?

You cannot be educated alone, only in a society. A person is taught to connect with others in a relationship that is similar to the quality of the Creator. We discover this quality between us because it is only between us that He is revealed. It is akin to changing something in a radio receiver so it receives the wave outside.

From The Zohar: NRN of Week Days and NRN of the Sabbath

A wise disciple should see himself equal to all the students of Torah. This is how he should consider himself from the perspective of the Torah, from the perspective of the noetic NRN. But from the perspective of the organs of the body, the perspective of the beastly NRN, he should regard himself equal to all the uneducated people, as it is written, “One should always see himself as though the whole world depends on him.” For this reason, he should aim his mind, spirit, and soul to make those sacrifices with all the people in the world, and the Creator adds a good thought to the act. By that, “Man and beast You deliver, O Lord.”

Zoharfor All, Tzav (Command), item 71

The upper light is intended to reform everyone—those on the animate degree, and those on the human degree. This is why no one can say, “It’s not for me.” There must be a study of the wisdom of Kabbalah because cannot draw the light without it. This is why the wisdom of Kabbalah is called “Torah of light,” “internality of the Torah,” the light that reforms.

Is it only the light that corrects? Will we never be able to correct our relationships?

Never. The world is beginning to realize it. It may take some time but we are already approaching it, beginning to agree with it.

It is palpable that the world is on the verge of giving up on most everything else.

It is felt, and they are in the right direction. They already understand that the change has to happen within us, regardless of whether one is Jewish or not, secular, or orthodox. The change has to be substantial and equal for all—begining to correct human nature. It is fine if one follows what is called the “practical Mitzvot (commandments), but it is just as fine if one does not. In relation to the inner change we are all the same; we must all do it.

Is the direction toward which the world is heading considered sacrifices?

Not yet. Sacrifices begin only through the light that reforms because this is what corrects us. We are all on the worst degree, though we have yet to recognize it as the worst. We are still unaware and unconscious in regard to the evil.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/tzav-command-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-8/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/tzav-command-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-8/VaYikra (The Lord Called) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/3e4ePsxn51o/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/vayikra-lord-called-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-3/#respondSun, 22 Mar 2020 03:00:24 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=5997Leviticus, 1:1-5:26 This Week’s Torah Portion | Mar 22 – Mar 28, 2020 – 26 Adar – 3 Nissan, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, VaYikra (The Lord Called), deals with rules of sacrificing and the priests serving in the tabernacle. Some offerings are optional; some are mandatory. Some of the offerings are burnt to ashes on the altar, and some […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, VaYikra (The Lord Called), deals with rules of sacrificing and the priests serving in the tabernacle. Some offerings are optional; some are mandatory. Some of the offerings are burnt to ashes on the altar, and some remain for the priests and the giver of the offering.

The rules of offerings speak of a “burnt offering” that a person brings voluntarily from the cattle, flock, and poultry. There is also a “gift offering,” which a person brings voluntarily from the flora. Also, there is the “peace offering,” which is an offering that a person brings from the cattle, sheep, and goats. The “sinoffering” is an offering brought by one who sinned by mistake. That person makes an offering to atone for the sin.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, VaYikra (The Lord Called), teaches us about the work of the offerings, which are also the main topic in the Talmud. We learn all the works from the works of the Temple.

People are nearing the purpose of creation and Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator, to the human level, a life in a totally blissful world, and experiencing all the worlds and the sensation of nature as complete and eternal, as it was prepared for us. That nearing is called Korban (offering/sacrifice) from the word Karov (near).

We are approaching it step by step by correcting our nature. There are 613 desires in us, which we must correct one at a time, each desire with all of its parts. Our desires divide into four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. The work of the offerings teaches us how to sacrifice and correct them so they are in bestowal and love. The rule in our work is to correct our nature and achieve the state, “love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah.”[1] By that, we become similar to the Creator and achieve Dvekut with Him.

The correction of the egoistic desire from receiving for myself into bestowal upon others is called an “offering” that a person offers. The offering may come from several sources. It may be from the still, as it is written, “On all your offerings you shall offer salt” (Leviticus, 2:13), or water or oil. It can also be from the vegetative or processed plants, such as the showbread. From the animate, only a certain kind is offered. The priests’ and the Levites’ daily work in the Temple is to sacrifice the flock and the cattle.

There are offerings that one must make on a daily basis, similar to our progress from day to day according to the plan of creation, on a predetermined pace. When we do not follow suit, we suffer a thrust from behind, from the negative forces.

The offerings we cannot make—namely the desires we cannot correct into aiming to bestow upon others—become negative forces that manifest as problems that push us from behind through suffering. These desires accumulate until they break out as crises, similar to the comprehensive crisis we are currently experiencing.

The crisis is not a negative state, but a result of neglect. It is happening because we are so engrossed in materialism instead of rising above it, because we are so obstinate and refuse to listen to the guidance of Kabbalists.

In fact, the crisis is a point of new birth. It points to our inability to live according to the old paradigm. Our perspective on life and the attitude toward values in our lives break and fall apart, as it manifests in education, family relations, and so forth.

The order of the work of the offerings is very important because it explains how we advance in life. If we follow this order, our lives will flow in order too.

The general nature is built so that if each moment we correct more and more pieces of the egoism into altruism and love of others, into connection with humanity, with nature, we draw nearer to the Creator—the only force that exists in reality. In this way we are in balance with it, and there is no better state for us than that. After all, in that state we do not need anything and reside in a world of utter bliss.

VaYikra details the order of correction of all 613 broken, egoistic desires into connection with others, and through it, connection with the Creator. It is written about it, “From the Love of man to the love of God.”[2] However, before we connect with others, we must be properly built within. We must prepare ourselves for it internally, as well as externally.

Assume that a person must be “married,” meaning have a deficiency. A woman is a deficiency next to the man, a deficiency adapted to the ability to correct it. The feminine part of a person is as a deficiency, the left side, while the masculine part is the right side, which complements. In a state of collaborative work, a person is considered “married.” The man—which is higher than the woman and wants to advance and correct the deficiency—makes an offering. The offering is also for the feminine part in the person. The same applies to the rest of the people.

The work of the offerings is the work in the Temple, the common Kli of the world where a person expresses one’s attitude toward the Creator. There are many details to this work: how to slaughter, burn, and how to discern all the parts in the offerings.

There is a part in us that enjoys, and a part that is as “smoke.” The word “smoke” is an acronym for Olam, Shana, Nefesh (ASHAN [smoke]) by which a person transcends the limitations of our world, thus advancing toward the purpose of creation.

When one begins to connect and approach the Creator through the offerings, one becomes more suitable for the Creator. Each time, one of the 613 desires becomes more suitable for the Creator. This way a person begins to feel that the system within is becoming more similar to that of the Creator. Then the person begins to understand Him since one contains a partial sample of Him, which gradually expands. The more one’s desires close in on a similar structure to Godliness, the more the Creator “clothes” in the person. Thus one becomes more similar to the Creator.

Through one’s internal system, where there is already a part of the Creator, a person begins to understand and know Him. Such a person can picture and imagine that system, thoughts, desires, and approach of the Creator toward him or her. Thus one can increasingly understand one’s attitude toward the Creator. The model that one builds within allows one to be in mutual connection with the Creator, and this is how a person becomes man (Adam).

From the beginning of creation through its end we undergo a process by which we must correct ourselves and rise from our world to the world of Ein Sof (infinity). We must do it internally, in our inner structure, so that each time we become increasingly similar to the upper force. This is the work that this portion deals with.

The Creator is inviting us to this work hoping that humanity will respond. The whole work is of the part of us called “Israel,” and of which it was written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6). The priests are the ones who manage the work at the Temple, bringing the rest of the nation to this work so the whole nation may able to correct itself.

All of Israel are regarded as priests in relation to the rest of the world. VaYikra (The Lord Called) is first and foremost a call to Israel because Israel are obliged to teach the rest of humanity how to approach the Creator. It was written about it, “they shall all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah, 31:33), and “for My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ to all the nations” (Isaiah, 56:7), once it is built.

This is why VaYikra is a call to the entire nation of Israel to correct itself as quickly as possible, thus also correcting the global crisis, the world’s problems, and abolishing anti-Semitism. Then everyone will truly be as one group, a single nation.

Questions and Answers

We sacrifice to the Creator, but the sacrifice is actually nearing between people. What is the connection between bringing people closer and drawing closer to the Creator?

There is an act here, and there is the intention. To perform correction we must draw closer to others. We cannot draw closer to others unless we have the intention to draw closer, and unless the common force of bestowal that exists in the world, namely the Creator, appears between us. Through mutual nearing, we build an opportunity, a place, a space of mutual desire where the mutual force of bestowal appears, meaning the force of love, which does not exist in our world. That force does not exist in our qualities unless we exert to make it, to make room for it. The place where the force of bestowal appears is called “dweller” or “the revelation of Divinity.” It requires three conditions in order to exist: you, me, and the Creator.

What is the order between them? It seems reasonable to say, “Give me this type of Temple and I will sacrifice my cow there.

It is all within us, the cow too.

It follows that we must approach the Creator so He may give us the strength to love others. So one does not reach the Creator through others, but from the Creator to others because the problems are between us and not with the Creator?

True, there is no other way. We begin from hating each other; we have no desire whatsoever to draw near. Only through troubles and problems, when we ask how and why, what is the meaning of life, what is happening in the world, do we understand that we must correct our nature and start looking for a solution. Our correction is from reception to bestowal, from hate to love, from understanding that the hatred is destroying the world and our lives.

Today the whole world is dealing with correcting human nature because it ruins everything, including this planet. Many scientists are warning about these problems, which are already causing our collapse.

The problem is that we cannot restrain human nature. We are marching as sheep to the slaughter, unable to stop ourselves. Baal HaSulam wrote that the angel of death comes with a drop of poison on the tip of his sword, and you open your mouth to it because there is a last bit of pleasure on it, and you die. You cannot see past yourself, and even if you do, you simply must have this drop.[3]Go to the craftsman who made me, Just so, we are advancing blindly, following our nature into wars and troubles, ruining everything along the way because it is all done without higher guidance.

We need the upper force. This need arises from the sensation of troubles and problems that are already appearing in the world, but it should come with an explanation. There must be a system that provides information that we, the children of Israel, must pass on to the rest of the world. This is the meaning of being a kingdom of priests. The priests are those who teach the people, as it is written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 19:6).

We must make the reason for the crisis known, as well as the means for correcting human nature, in order to bring the whole of humanity to balance with nature, or we will not survive.

Although the conditions for it have all been prepared, we have to do our share in this work. This is why we are witnessing an increase in global anti-Semitism, which will only increase unless we make the method of correction and its use known in due time, and promote its implementation the world over.

It is therefore clear that we ourselves must be connected to the Creator, study, and demand the revelation of the Creator in order to allow ourselves to advance. All we need is the sense of lack and our drive toward it, since the moment we need His strength, we will ask and receive it.

The Book of Zohar explains that these are not cows, sheep, or any other kosher animal. Rather, it is a person who needs to correct, to discern the animal part within, the speaking part, which is the priest, Levite, and Israel. A person offers and sacrifices part of the animate, which is all the animate within us. Actually, it concerns the desires within us, which divide into still, vegetative, animate, and human.

A person cannot perform correction without first knowing what to do, without internally distinguishing good from bad. Currently, we do not know what to correct. You might say, “Yes, sometimes I lie,” but how can you tell that this is what you must correct? Anyone can say that, at least to oneself. However, even then it is not a sincere confession. So how will you know what is stopping you from approaching the goal? For this, we need the revelation of the Creator, the light that reforms to illuminate for us the desires we can sacrifice.

From The Zohar: One Who Did Not Marry a Woman Is Flawed

“When any man of you brings an offering” means excluding one who did not marry a wife, since his offering is not an offering and there are no blessings in him, neither above nor below. This means that when it writes, “When any man of you brings an offering,” and he is different, not a human and not included in man. Divinity is not over him because he is flawed and called “maimed,” and one who is maimed is removed from everything, all the more so from the altar, from offering sacrifices.

Zoharfor All, VaYikrah (The Lord Called), item 63

If one knows and feels that one is flawed, namely still has an egoistic intention, how can one sacrifice it? How can one move closer to the Creator?

Such a person must first be whole.

Ask most people and they will tell you, “I’m fine with the Creator; I get along with Him. How do they know? Do they feel this way? Is this how the Creator is depicted for them?

They feel so because the Creator is hidden from them, so they are sure they are OK with Him.

If the person is OK with the Creator, why is He hidden?

We do not ask ourselves this question. We say, “I pay my taxes, I’m friendly to my neighbors, I even put the garbage in the right bins. I’m just fine.”

How do you explain to people that there is a connection, that we must discover the quality of bestowal within us, that this is the Creator? How do you explain that VaYikra means that the Creator is calling us to approach something very different?

We determine our own situation, the scale, according to the upper force, which is benevolent, whole, in which there is no hate but only love. We measure in comparison with it how similar or different we are from it, from the Unique one from whom everything was created and to whom everything returns. First we must see and feel how different or similar we are to Him. We must also engage in the wisdom of Kabbalah, or we will have no chance of nearing Him.

This is how everyone thinks, which is why it is impossible to turn to anyone in this manner. We need to measure people compared to the Creator, and then it will be possible to see how obligated we are, and how the Creator has made us so. We could say, “Go to the craftsman who made me,”[4] since He has made me this way, and only through bringing the upper light will anything be resolved.

Our qualities have been designed since childhood by our parents, education, the environment, the Creator, genes, grandparents, and previous generations. Then there are our own additions. Over that part which we add to ourselves, which we could avoid adding, too, or add negative traits to ourselves, over that part we have choice and can say, “This I need to correct.” This is the initial scrutiny. It is a very special work, which is why we do not immediately arrive at the offerings.

During all the previous portions we advance toward this work, discovering the Creator—the upper force—at the level we are in through the quality of Moses in us. We measure ourselves compared to them, and only then can we correct our qualities and know how many of them we should fix, and how. After all, we have many qualities that need no correction because they are corrected by themselves, as they are not ours.

In A Nutshell

The portion, VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled), begins with the commandment, “Six days shall work be done, but on the seventh day there shall be to you a holy day” (Exodus, 35:2). The portion also deals with the donation of the people. The donation is in gold, silver, copper, precious fabrics, and so forth. Moses determines that Bezalel and Ahaliav will be the ones performing the holy work because they were wisehearted and would collect the donation that came from the entire nation, including the women.

Bezalel and Ahaliav tell Moses that the donations are so voluminous that there is surplus and no need for more. Moses declares this to the people.

The portion elaborates on the building of the tabernacle by the wisehearted: the garments, boards, bolts, and Bezalel’s work preparing the Ark (of the Covenant), the table, and the menorah.

The portion, Pekudei (Accounts), mentions the names of the people who took part in building the tabernacle, Itamar, son of Aaron the priest, Bezalel, son of Uri, and Ahaliav, son of Ahisemech.

As the building of the tabernacle concluded, the children of Israel brought it to Moses, who made sure it was done according to the Creator’s commandment. The Creator tells Moses on which day to establish the tabernacle, and by which order to sanctify each of its elements. He also commands Moses to anoint Aaron and his sons as priests.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Both portions present a sequence of one topic. The Torah begins with “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”[1] The evil inclination is our entire nature manifesting in our hatred for one another. First we must discover it, hence the first revelation of the evil inclination takes place with Abraham in the Tower of Babylon. Subsequently, we discover it in the hard labor in Egypt, then at the foot of Mount Sinai, where hatred prevailed between everyone, as it is written, “Hatred descended to the nations of the world.”[2] This is the recognition of evil.

It is no simple task to know the evil. It does not concern discovering that one is lazy or deceitful, thieving, or exploitive. Rather, the evil appears only when a person wants to unite with others. It happens only among those who are drawn to connection, to “love your neighbor as yourself.”[3] When they try, nature does not let them bond.

According to the Torah, which is the upper force, if one truly wishes to achieve love of others, and through it the love of the Creator—which is the comprehensive love—and wants to discover the common, benevolent force that prevails in the world, all that one needs is the Torah.

Today it may seem to us that the world is terrible because we are examining it through our evil inclination, through our corrupted qualities. But “All who cast fault, cast fault in his own defect.”[4] As we correct ourselves we become righteous and justify the Creator and His creation. Then we begin to see the world as good. Baal HaSulam describes it in his essay, “Concealment and Revelation of the Creator’s Face.”[5]

One who begins to connect with others and love them, who draws closer to the global and integral world—as we discover it to be each day, hence the current surfacing of the wisdom of Kabbalah—begins to feel the evil. Then, and only then does one need the Torah, for it is the “light that reforms.”[6]

The Torah has nothing to do with a person studying the text in the book. Rather, it is about one who studies in order to receive the light that corrects, to acquire more and more love for the world. In this manner we become more and more similar to the Creator, thus returning to the image of man, called Adam. The part we attain and correct over our evil inclination, the part that turns the evil inclination into a good inclination is called a “soul.”

This is why we take from Egypt the primary Kelim (vessels), which are valuable in the eyes of the great evil inclination, and through which we emerge from the period known as “Egypt” and enter the recognition of the evil inclination, building from them the golden calf. When everything appears clearly and intensely, we truly need the Torah.

This is the reason why the first tablets where inappropriate for correction, but only the second tablets, with which Moses descended on the Day of Atonement and brought them to the people of Israel, once the people recognized the evil in them. We know the evil in us and need the Torah only after we see the golden calf within us and how we resist love of others and want to exploit the entire world.

The Torah explains the stages of building of the tabernacle—which desires out of the sum of evil desires we have toward others do we correct from receiving into giving, from hate to love. This is the whole Torah, the instruction how to do this. Instead of being immersed in our evil inclination, seeing only the narrow reality of this world, if we correct our desires even slightly we can open ourselves to see the upper world, here and now.

As we develop in this manner, the world around us opens and appears as the world of Assiya, Yetzira, Beria, Atzilut, and Adam Kadmon—the world of Ein Sof (infinity)—at the end of correction. First, we build a small Neshama (soul) that is common for all. This is the “tent of meeting, which includes the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking, which is our quality, the Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, the complete HaVaYaH within us. We must take from each desire and connect everything into a single, integral desire that is common to all, and which will connect to all the people who are ready for it, building together a united, common Kli (vessel). This is how everyone advances.

A person must have the qualities of Bezalel, of a priest, Aaron the priest, and certainly those of Moses—the first of the priests, Levites, and Israel. The Torah explains how we can use the light that we draw in order to understand which desire we can correct now, and which we can correct later.

As Moses said in the previous portion, only half of the desires were corrected using the half shekel, the shekel of the holiness. The other half comes from above. The half is our deficiency, and the other half is the light that corrects and complements. With our efforts we build everything that depends on us, all the qualities of the soul: priests, Levites, and Israel, using silver, gold, and various precious stones.

Through the mind and heart that only the qualities of Bezalel have, as it is a replication from the Creator, we feel that we have an example by which to build our soul in accord with the Creator who appears before us. This is how we build the soul in which we experience the new world, which is the Kli, our corrected desire. Within that desire is the force of bestowal and love called Boreh (the Creator), Bo Re’eh (come see). This is how we come to see, discover the Creator.

The first steps alternate in appearance between cloud and fire, as the Creator ascending and descending. “Rise up, O Lord, let Your enemies be scattered, and let those who hate You flee before You” (Numbers, 10:35). In our current situation, in our world, we cannot talk about these things or about the parts we need to correct because we still have no sensation of our soul; we do not find these desires in us or know quite how to scrutinize them or connect them in this extremely complex system. The Torah tells us this as a story that is a replication from this world: rocks, trees, people, clothes, the world in general, time, motion, and place. These forms are described so we may discern which parts of the soul we must correct.

Within the soul are forces that work in order to receive, and must be turned into working in order to bestow. We still cannot express these forces and name them because we do not know them, so the Torah tells us the story in its own way, and Kabbalists convey it in the “language of roots and branches.”

Kabbalists tell us about the forces that operate, about the parts of the soul. The Book of Zohar with the Sulam (Ladder) commentary that Baal HaSulam wrote narrates it in the language of Kabbalah, so we can understand what is meant by the words of the Torah. We can understand that the Torah speaks only of the parts of our soul, the correction of the heart, which is our desires. In this manner we can unravel the entire Torah, discover it in our hearts as a corrected system, and discover the upper force, the Creator, within all that.

Questions and Answers

What does it mean to gather?

Gathering refers to the children of Israel that Moses assembles in order to declare the Sabbath day, which is the conclusion of the work. The goal must be clear from the start because “the end of an act is in the preliminary thought.”[7] If we know why we must achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator, why we must make ourselves similar, discover Him, and be like Him, literally “face to face,” namely be in Moses’ degree, we must know it in advance. Even in the smallest action, there must be the same goal, the same clear line drawn out and compelling us to advance only in this direction. Whatever problems arise along the way, ascents, descents, and twists, they will all be for progressing.

This is why in the desert that Israel traverse there is constant recognition of the evil, and it is actually for the best. Additional desires keep surfacing and we must correct them in order to advance toward the land of Israel—the corrected desire where the Creator resides.

Why do we have to know all the details by which we advance, these ascents and descents?

This is how we attain the plan of creation, its purpose, the understanding, sensation, and knowledge of it. There is a difference between the will to receive that the Creator created existence from absence in the beginning of creation, and the will to receive at the end of creation. At the end of creation that desire has a mind. It remains the same will to receive, but with a mind, comprehension, recognition, and sensation. Everything comes from the connection of mind and heart.

Will a person necessarily experience all the elements described in this portion?

A person will not experience it without planning to, without desiring to participate, without raising MAN and requesting to correct. Only one who wants, feels, and is aware of how much he or she hates but wants to love will experience everything. Therefore, we must correct some of the still in us, some of the vegetative, and thus discover the reality we are in, and from it reveal the other reality.

Gradually, we become a structure that contains all the mind and heart, all the wisdom in the world. The whole of nature is within us and we include all the worlds. There is nothing outside of us. The vast world we depict outside of us does not exist; it is only depicted in this manner in our external Kelim, which must all be made internal. Hence, there is nothing but man and the Creator who are as a single system.

From The Zohar: Whoever Is of a Generous Heart, Let Him Bring It

“Take from among you a donation.” When a person places his will for the work of his Master, that will first rises to the heart—the persistence and the basis of the entire body. Afterwards that good will rises over all the organs of the body, the will of all the organs of the body and the will of the heart join together, pulling over them the brightness of Divinity to dwell with them. And that person is the Creator’s portion, as it is written, “Take from among you a donation.” “From among you” is the extension, to take upon yourselves that donation, the Divinity, so that the person will be a portion of the Creator.

Zoharfor All, VaYakhel (And Moses Assembled), item 71

Initially, there is an egoistic desire that a person corrects by donation. The donation is the part of the will to receive with which one can enhance the quality of bestowal. The donation raises the part of bestowal with which one wants to dominate and advance.

By donations that we put aside from the ego, namely parts we can sanctify and invert how we use them into bestowal and love, we advance up to the end of correction. At that time it is not building a tabernacle or advancing in the tabernacle in time, place, and motion. Rather, it is reaching Mount Moriah and building the Temple.

Kabbalists attain the complete structure, the complete soul, called Beit HaMikdash (House of Holiness, Temple). In it are all the parts: priest, Levite, Israel, and the nations of the world. The great Kabbalist, Ramchal, Rabbi Moshe Chaim Lozzato, wrote a special essay known as “The Dwelling Place of the Most High,” in which he drew in great detail what the third Temple should look like. He did not refer to the rocks in Jerusalem, but to the structure of the corrected soul, which must eventually be on the Sabbath, as was said at the beginning of the portion. We arrive at the Sabbath upon the conclusion of the six days, or six thousand years, when all the Kelim are corrected and there is nothing more to do or to work with but to enjoy in happiness and peace.

When the children of Israel bring donations, Moses says, “That’s enough, you’ve gone too far.” It sounds odd because we say that there are no limits on bestowal.

True, but each degree has its own scrutiny. The soul consists of three parts: NHY, HGT, HBD, or Ibur (conception), Yenika (nursing), and Mochin (mindfulness/adulthood), or Nefesh, Ruach, Neshama. Neshama is named after the great light that can be in it.

Hence, on the degree of Israel they give a lot; on the degree of Levites they give less; and on the degree of priests they give even less. It depends on a person’s degree and on who is performing the scrutiny.

It also depends on the degree to which a person raises the desires. If the person stays in desires of the Israel degree, whatever one brings is fine. But when the desires are at the level of Levites or priests, we haven’t enough forces to be in such a high degree with all of our desires, so they are restricted. This is the meaning of the degrees in the soul.

If the Creator gives to us and then says, “Give it back,” why did He give it in the first place?

The Creator created an entire world, the world of Ein Sof, then broke it and gave us a broken world and a broken Adam (soul) so we may fix it. It is similar to a puzzle or LEGO bricks that we put together and learn as we advance. If we give this game to a child without putting it together, the child will break it because children are driven by the urge to understand and know. By nature, we cannot approach a complete thing. To understand it, study it, we must have it broken.

We take our broken desires and raise them as high as we can toward correction, and the correction comes from above. The Creator has given us everything broken; we need only raise that corruption, meaning recognize it, and ask Him to partake in the correction. The correction itself always comes from above through the light that reforms, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice … because the light in it reforms.”[8]

We are in the middle. We do not belong to the evil inclination; it is not our own because in truth, the Creator has made it and given it. We also do not belong to the light that reforms. Our job is only to connect the two: the corrupt desire below with the light from above. That is, all we need is to ask, demand, and pray for correction.

How do we do it properly? How should we prepare this work so that we bring it to the Creator in the right way?

Our work is to sort each desire whose time has come. First we scrutinize it through the light, then set it up for correction through the light and ask for correction. These things can happen only by the light that shines, so without studying the wisdom of Kabbalah it is impossible to do anything, as this is what brings the light.

Do we receive the light when we study Kabbalah?

Yes. During the study a person begins to feel how everything falls into place. If the study is done properly, it takes some time for one to actually achieve it, but then one can study the Bible, the Pentateuch, Gemarah, and Mishnah and they will all be a source of light to that person.

And as the desire of all of Israel was in what they volunteered, so was their desire in that calculation. By their desire, they extended the Mochin of calculation, and then the whole work was done by desire. Hence, calculation is needed here in the tabernacle, since by calculation is the work done. This is why it is written, “These are the accounts of the tabernacle.”

It is a calculation that faults all the calculations in the world—extension of GARdeHochma—which are not of Kedusha [holiness], for they do not persist, but destroy the place to which they are drawn. Yet, this calculation in the tabernacle, which is VAKdeHochma, persists more than all the others, and by that the tabernacle persists, and not by another.

Zoharfor All, Pekudei (Accounts), item 49

There is a big difference between VAK and GAR. GAR means we are drawing by ourselves; VAK means that we are rejecting, that everything is done in bestowal. The lights are all passing through us; we are receiving the full Ein Sof in order to convey it to everyone. But we are not harmed when we work entirely in order to bestow, thus making ourselves similar to the source, the Creator. He passes through Him to everyone, and likewise, when we all connect, passing from everyone to everyone, the great sphere called “the common soul of Ein Sof” is made.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/vayakhel-moses-assembled-pekudei-accounts-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-3/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/vayakhel-moses-assembled-pekudei-accounts-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-3/Ki Tissa (When You Take) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/iVRVYA62iSk/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/03/ki-tissa-take-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-4/#respondSun, 08 Mar 2020 03:00:12 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=5993Exodus, 30:11-34:35 This Week’s Torah Portion | Mar 8 – Mar 14, 2020 – 12 Adar – 18 Adar, 5780 In A Nutshell The portion, Ki Tissa (When You Take), begins with a request of each one of the children of Israel to donate half a shekel for the building of the tabernacle. The portion mentions some other details about […]

In A Nutshell

The portion, Ki Tissa (When You Take), begins with a request of each one of the children of Israel to donate half a shekel for the building of the tabernacle. The portion mentions some other details about the tabernacle such as the anointing oil, the table, and the menorah and its vessels, appointing Bezalel, son of Uri Ben Hur, as chief craftsman, Ahaliav Ben Ahisemech as his assistant, and commanding the children of Israel to observe the Sabbath.

Later, Moses ascends to Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the covenant but delays in his return, so the children of Israel seek proof that the Creator exists and demand of Aaron to build a golden calf. Aaron agrees, takes their gold vessels, melts them, and builds the golden calf.

When Moses returns from the mountain and sees it, the tablets of the covenant break. The Creator wishes to destroy and ruin the entire people of Israel, and Moses pleads for their souls.

Moses speaks to the Creator “face to face,” and wishes to conceal himself.

At the end of the process, the Creator agrees and makes a covenant with the people of Israel. The Creator also promises Israel that they will enter the land of Israel, and repeats the commandment of the three Pilgrimage festivals (Shalosh Regalim) and the prohibition of idolatry.

Moses stays with the Creator on Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights, writes on the tablets, and comes down from the mountain. It is written, “And it came to pass when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses’ hand … that Moses did not know that the skin of his face beamed while He talked with him” (Exodus, 34:29). It was so much so that he had to hide himself from the people once more because they feared speaking with him.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Those who do not know the language of Kabbalah will find it hard to understand that the text actually discusses a person’s inner development. It concerns our nature, which is the will to receive, an egoistic desire that requires correction. The Torah speaks only of the correction of the desire, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[1] because “the light in it would reform them.”[2]

The purpose of the correction is to transform our evil (egoistic) inclination, which aims only toward self-gratification and exploitation of the entire world for itself, and turn it into love of others, as in “love your neighbor as yourself.”[3]

The Torah speaks of a process that is not simple, but which all of us experience. The general crisis we are in will cause us to come out to the light, to correction, similar to the exodus from Egypt. Today we are all standing before Mount Sinai with a huge ego, with all the Kelim (vessels) we have taken from Egypt. During the millennia of development, humanity has accumulated a massive ego; now we have no clue what to do with it, other than escape it.

When we are drawn toward Mount Sinai we discover a mountain of hate between us. Only the point within us, called Moses, pulls us forward toward connection with something higher, a higher degree—human degree of similarity with the Creator.

We are all still as beasts,[4] operated entirely by egos, our nature. Instead, we must be as a free nation in our country, free in its will. “Such is the way of Torah.”[5]

To do that, one who wishes to ascend to the human degree, and discover the Creator and the worlds around us must follow the unique line known as “half a shekel,” meaning neither to the right nor to the left, but the joining of the two. The will to receive, too, takes part because it is “help made against us” (Genesis, 2:18), and against it you need the reforming light.

We have two lines: on the left is the will to receive; on the right is the light. The more we combine them, the more we correct the will to receive to similarity with the light—working in order to bestow. It is written, “And the night will shine as the day; darkness as light” (Psalms, 139:12). This is how we advance. This is the first correction—no more and no less, but precisely half. We advance when we achieve that correction, that method of advancement.

Subsequently, the tabernacle and its vessels must be prepared, including the oil and all that comes with it. The role was given only to Bezalel. Bezalel within us is that which is Betzel El (in the shadow of God), under the shadow of the Creator. Bezalel replicates the qualities from the Creator, who appears to him, and this is why he is called “wisehearted.” He knows the right combination between the heart, the desire, and the wisdom, namely the intellect. Bezalel properly combines the right with the left, and has wisdom of the heart. This is why he is the one who can establish the tabernacle.

The tabernacle is the arrangement of the soul that we build within us from our 613 desires. It is built according to the right qualities, in which all the parts are connected in synchrony with the Creator. This is how we become similar to Him.

Our evil inclination has 613 qualities we must aim in order to bestow, toward love of others. Only those who have the quality of Bezalel—copying the qualities of the Creator onto oneself and becoming as His shadow—can do it.

Achieving this is done by connecting to the Shechina (Divinity), Malchut of Atzilut, who begins to replicate these qualities from Zeir Anpin of Atzilut. Zeir Anpin has six Sephirot: Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, and Yesod, where Malchut comes last and replicates. This is why our work is to replicate these six qualities from Zeir Anpin—called HaKadosh Baruch Hu (The Holy One, Blessed Be He), or Zeir Anpin of Atzilut—in the appearance of the Creator on all the workdays.

The wisdom of Kabbalah presents our goal—the revelation of the Creator to the creatures in this world. Through our senses, when the Creator is revealed to us, we join and increasingly attach ourselves to the Creator.

When we conclude replicating the six qualities comes the concluding seventh quality, the Sabbath. The Sabbath concludes itself by itself from above. This is why it is considered “awakening from above.” A special light comes and sets the six qualities in the right order, and there is nothing more we need to do.

This is why the prohibition on working during Sabbath is tantamount to intervening with something that belongs to the upper light. We work for six days setting up the right and left lines, directing the will to receive and the light, the mind and the heart. Finally, we present our work, and then “The Lord will conclude for me” (Psalms, 138:8). This is when we receive the completion of the degree. This is the process we must undergo through the correction of the entire soul, week by week until we conclude the six thousand years.

We must also consider that our soul consists of desires from the evil inclination that cannot be spotted by ordinary scrutiny. They require special examination that only the golden calf can make.

Although the Torah presents it in this way, the golden calf does not represent a fall or a decline, nor does it blame anyone. Any person who experiences this process must go through all the descents and falls, just as it happened with Pharaoh in Egypt, and with the children of Israel in the desert after the events of Mount Sinai.

Even when we move from Mount Sinai to the forty years in the desert we will continue to experience states that seem negative. Each time uncorrected desires surface, we “fall” into them, so we have no choice but to discover them and correct them. It is written, “There is not a righteous man on earth who does good and will not sin” (Ecclesiastes, 7:20), or “A person does not comprehend words of Torah unless he has failed in them.”[6] Thus, first we must fail, scrutinize the failure and correct it, and then we are guaranteed to not repeat it. We are guaranteed to be kept because that desire has already been corrected into having the aim to bestow through which we progress toward love of others.

When we discover that despite the work we have done, we have not revealed the Creator, it is considered that Moses did not return from Mount Sinai. That is, we are drawn back to the intention to receive, the egoistic desire, called “the golden calf.”

Our corrupted desires are called “mixed multitude.” They ask, “Where did Moses go?” They claim we must keep going as we understand it, within us, following our reason and intellect, instead of above reason.

When we return to working within reason we are delighted. It seems to us that this way we understand and feel everything. We may not be ascending to higher degrees, but at least we are in a world that suits our egos. It is a very appealing state. We can see for ourselves how difficult it is to explain to people what nature is compelling us to do now, what is the method of correction and how we can rise to the next level. The Creator, nature, Elokim (which is nature in Gematria) is pressing us and wishes to raise us, and we are seemingly resisting it with a golden calf, celebrating and rejoicing.

When the point in the heart appears, it collides very powerfully with the egoistic desire that has broken out once more. That collision is the shattering of the tablets.

The collision is between the point in the heart—through which we desire to rise and cling to the upper one, to a higher degree, to discover worlds, infinity, and be in a realm of bestowal—and the revelation that we are actually at the point of being a golden calf. We cannot tolerate that contrast, and as a result, all the elements in which we were previously in Kedusha (holiness) shatter.

Those who sinned in the calf were sentenced to death. Subsequently, Moses called, “Whoever is for the Lord, come to me!” (Exodus, 32:26). This is the correction of the desires that have appeared now, that are connected to the golden calf, and with which it is impossible to continue.

Following the correction of all the other desires—the three thousand discernments that Moses killed—he ascends to Mount Sinai yet again. Internally, it means that that point within us rises once again and we receive the tablets of the covenant once more. We rediscover Godliness, the Creator, and begin to come down with the second tablets.

Yet, there is a big difference between the first tablets and the second tablets—Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). The first tablets and the golden calf took place on the ninth of Av (11th month in the Hebrew calendar). The occurrence of the first tablets happens from Shavuot to the ninth of Av. Those of the second tablets take place from the ninth of Av to Yom Kippur. Forty days plus forty days are the time frame of correction from which it is possible to continue.

Half a shekel, half a hin, means half a measure. The Vav is the middle between the two Heys because the Vav is the middle line, called “scales,” which weigh the two lights, right and left, being the two Heys, so the left will not be greater than the right. This is why he diminishes the left, so it will not shine from above downward but only from below upward.

Zoharfor All, Ki Tissa (When You Take), item 4

Our big will to receive, the ego, is on the left side. The light, which we can draw if we work correctly, according to the instructions of the wisdom of Kabbalah, is on the right. These are the two Yods, as in the letter Aleph, with the diagonal in the middle as the Parsa (partition) []. We must join the light from above, the upper Yod, with the will to receive from below, namely the lower Yod (sometimes written as Dalet, which is BehinaDalet, the Malchut in us, instead of the Yod). The diagonal line keeps the balance between them, thus creating the line.

This is why Aleph is the first letter in the alphabet. The portion, Ki Tissa (When You Take), is the beginning of the actual Torah because it engages in the building of the tabernacle and its filling. This is why we must constantly maintain that half, so the right is not more than the left or the other way around. If there is a surplus of desires to receive that we did not correct to the fullest possible extent, then we are not in the desire to bestow. If we take from the will to receive more than we can correct, we are in a state of recognition of evil. It has to be a very precise operation.

Once we restrict all our desires and avoid using the desire in order to receive, but only in order to bestow, we can continue sorting out those small parts of our desire from light to heavy, and join all the corrections to the light.

This is the letter Vav with the punctuation marks, Holam, Shuruk, Hirik, or Kamatz, which is as the Parsa. The light has to be above it because all the corrections are in ascent. In our world—our situation—we will never achieve the revelation of Godliness. There might be various psychological phenomena, but the revelation of Godliness can happen only if we rise above the Parsa.

Following the restriction, once we have the middle line, when we join a group and act in it—as Kabbalists suggest we should—when we try to come out of ourselves and be above reason, above the diagonal Vav, from below upward—we receive the revelation of the spiritual world.

Questions and Answers

Beresheet (Genesis) speaks of the creation of the world. In the desert, things take a long time to unfold, with numerous details along the way, as the portions describe. What do those details symbolize?

The Torah cannot tell us about all that we are going through. It only explains the milestones. It is similar to driving on a road where each mile or several miles are marked by signs.

Why are various garments and a description of the altar mentioned in the desert?

It is the correction of our soul. We have received a system of 613 desires, and each of them consists of all the others, and all are connected. That system is completely broken. It is as though we were given an electronic or mechanical device that is completely broken and we have no clue how to fix it. We would look at it dumbfounded without knowing how to approach it.

This is why we are taught how to do it: “Look at this, fix that, than this, but first that.” There are so many details in our soul, and all of it must become similar to the Creator in its inner structure, in how it works. And although it is the opposite substance from the Creator, “existence from absence,” it must come to resemble the “existence from existence.”

We cannot understand how important our world is, with all its complexities and myriad connections, every atom and every cell in the universe. This is why there are so many details in the correction of the soul. One who walks this path takes part in it and discovers it, and it arouses immense excitement and a sense of harmony and fulfillment.

How do you explain that everything exists and happens simultaneously—the point in the heart is on Mount Sinai, the highest connection, while other desires in me are building a golden calf?

This is the detachment within, where the Moses in us disappears. When Moses disappears we lose contact with the Creator, as this is the only point that connects us with Him. As soon as we disconnect, we find ourselves immersed in our desires, falling into the golden calf. These are the Kelim (vessels) we have taken out of Egypt, Kelim that want the light of Hochma (wisdom), namely pleasure for ourselves alone.

How come the desire obtains contact with the upper force and promptly afterward falls into connection with the golden calf?

There are no delays. There is either Kedusha (holiness) or Klipa (shell/peel). There are no in betweens. We must get used to constantly being in one of the two states; there are no others in our world.

Are Moses’ ascents and descents on Mount Sinai the ups and downs we are talking about?

It is about alternating revelations and concealments. It is similar to the festival of Purim and the story of Esther, who is also revelation in concealment. There cannot be revelation if it is not preceded by concealment. Had Moses not ascended Mount Sinai there would have been no golden calf. But without the golden calf we would not know what to correct. This is how we always progress, on two “legs.”

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Tetzaveh (Command), the Creator provides Moses with additional details regarding the tabernacle, and commands the children of Israel to take olive oil to light the everlasting candle in the tent of meeting outside the veil, so it may burn from dusk to dawn.

The Creator instructs Moses to appoint Aaron and his sons, Nadav, Avihu, Elazar, and Itamar to be his priests. He elaborates on the commandment of preparing the holy garments “for honor and glory” (Exodus, 28: 2): the vest, fringe, coat, and the rest of the garments of the priest.

Afterward comes an explanation on the sanctification of Aaron and his sons for their role in the tabernacle, including the offering of an ox and two rams on the altar of the incense that will be positioned inside the tabernacle before the veil, and how the incense is to be made. Finally, the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) is mentioned, which is to take place once a year.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The portion, Tetzaveh (Command), is very matter-of-fact, short, and pragmatic. The whole of the substance of creation is the desire to receive. This is the solid basis from which we should begin. We feel the will to receive within us divided into four levels: still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. All our desires are divided in this manner, and we give them the shape of bestowal, namely to aim them toward giving. All desires must be aimed toward our connection “as one man with one heart,”[1] with love of others, as in “love your neighbor as yourself.”[2]

To the extent that we correct each one of our desires, we shape the image of man—becoming similar to the Creator. This is Adam HaRishon (the first man), who shattered and divided into myriad souls. Our purpose is to reassemble those souls into that single soul. We achieve this by annulling our egos and connecting all our desires. The connection is on the levels of still, vegetative, animate, and speaking. In these degrees we gradually reconnect everything into the new reality that the Torah narrates.

First, the oil for the lamp is a special oil, which must be lit in a special way. Subsequently, from the emitted light we can prepare the priesthood garments that clothe the will to receive.

The will to receive remains the same whether it strives to benefit others or itself. The difference lies in how we use it—for our own sake or for the sake of others. That is, do we want to use it to benefit ourselves although it is detrimental to others, or do we want to benefit others? There are two options with myriad variations.

All this relates to “clothes” over the desire. The Torah details how to build these clothes—how to build the right intentions over our desires, meaning the degrees Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, or degrees of Aviut (thickness, will to receive) 1, 2, 3, and 4. The corrected desires may be from the still (inanimate) such as building the tent of meeting and the ark of the covenant, from the vegetative, such as wool or linen, or from the animate, which are the offerings themselves.

The speaking are people who are united in their degree, who wear the clothes that befit the high priest, such as a breastplate, a girdle, a miter, or a tunic. The high priest is a person who is aimed entirely toward bestowal, love of others, through which we reach the Creator. There is a priest, and there is the high priest. That is, there are Katnut (infancy)and Gadlut (adulthood) in this degree. These are the stages by which we must progress in order to correct our desires.

The sum of the desire that the Creator created in each of us contains 613 desires, which are 613 desires we must invert from inclining to receive to desiring to bestow upon others. This is how we connect with one another, gathering all these desires into a single mechanism.

Questions and Answers

Can we change desires through intentions?

Yes, we can change desires through intentions. By wanting to give to each other we tie our desires as a single body in a Kli (vessel) known as Beit HaMikdash (lit. The House of Holiness; trans. Temple). Bait (house) is a Kli of Kedusha (holiness), bestowal, love of others, the aim to give. This is the Adam that we build, our common soul, Shechina (Divinity), the Assembly of Israel, Malchut of Atzilut—where the Creator appears.

The portion explains that our desires are divided, too. The writings of the ARI teach us that our soul consists of Shoresh, Neshama, Guf, Levush, Heichal (root, soul, body, clothing, hall, respectively). Shoresh is inside us, Neshama is our innermost part, Guf is the desires themselves, and Levush and Heichal are additions.

The Torah tells us that the Levush (clothing) consists of the five types of garments of the high priest. Heichal (hall) is the surroundings—the tent of meeting with all its details. Of course, none of this relates to any physical tent, person, vessels, or a lamp. Rather, the text relates to the way we develop the will to receive into working in order to bestow, as the Creator bestows upon us. Through these corrections of many degrees and parts in our desires we achieve similarity with the Creator and Dvekut (adhesion) with Him.

The end of the portion also mentions Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement). All the corrections we perform during the year, the preparations, corrections over the nations of the world, over the people of Israel, and over the Levites and the priests, bring us to the degree of the high priest. When we rise above those desires and bring them together to a place of general bestowal, called Beit HaMikdash, a place of special unity where we achieve oneness with the Creator—the point of Dvekut—it is called “the work of the priest in the holy of holies on the day of atonement.”

Aaron and his sons are all in spirituality, yet we know that spirituality is not transferred by inheritance. Many Kabbalists had no children, or had children who did not become Kabbalists. And yet, here we see a very clear order of Aaron and his sons. What is the meaning of this order?

The priesthood that is passed on from father to sons is discussed not only in this portion.

Some researchers claim that it is possible to find genes of priests even today.

This is true; it can be found in both the material world and the spiritual world. There are many reasons for it, but what we understand is that a Kli (vessel) that is in bestowal—meaning a spiritual Partzuf, or a soul (Neshama) that is working in bestowal in order to bestow—operates in active bestowal and begets a more advanced Partzuf called a “son.”

Yes. This is why it is impossible for a holy Partzuf to emerge from a Partzuf that is not bestowing in order to bestow or receiving in order to bestow. In our world we may or may not pay attention to it because in projecting to corporeality it becomes mere customs. But in spirituality we understand where it comes from; a Partzuf that has a Masach (screen), Aviut (thickness), and Ohr Hozer (Reflected Light), and works in holiness cannot yield an impure act. This is why priesthood is inherited from father to son.

How come we do not know what happened to Moses’ sons, but do know it about priests?

Moses is contact with the Creator, in which all are included, above all the priesthood. The priests provide direction in the work of the Creator, in corrections, and Moses is the point of contact itself. It is not a direction, merely a point of attachment, of Dvekut.

In other words, it is all in us; it is not a physical Moses or anything of the sort.

No, there is no such thing; it is all in us. When we connect among us, we produce a Kli that yields a sensation of connection, a bonding between us. First comes love of people, as it is written, “love your neighbor as yourself.”[3] Then comes the love of the Creator. These are the circles we need to build in the bonding between us. The whole of humanity must achieve it, the people of Israel, as well as non-Jews who are drawn to it and can achieve real connection with the Creator.

This is why Moses did not belong to the priests, Levites, or Israel; he is a point above any definition. Although he includes them, he is still above them. The correction of the world is that all of us will unite. The more we unite and make ourselves similar to the upper light, the Creator, the more He is with us and within us.

The portion details garments. It was said that only the wisehearted can prepare these garments. Who are the wisehearted?

The wisehearted are those whose heart, meaning desire, is arranged according to Hochma (wisdom). These are not ordinary desires, but ones that have been arranged by the light of Hochma. Therefore, the beginning of the portion talks about the general light that reforms, which illuminates all the Kelim (vessels). Only with this light is it possible to carry out the Mitzvot (commandments) described in the portion, which is why it is called Tetzaveh (Command). The Creator’s command comes only in order to give us the light that reforms. The Creator tells us how to use it in order to achieve corrections, such as the garments of the high priest, the building of the tabernacle and everything else.

Is it only when a person reaches a certain stage of wisdom of the heart that one can wear these garments?

The heart is the tabernacle of all our desires, but only if one arranges all of one’s desires in the right order using the upper light, the menorah that illuminates to that person, the light that reforms. The right order means in order to bestow, from easiest to hardest. It is not something we need to build; it is rather built by itself. The commandment relates only to our willingness; we must come under the light with our Kli, then the Kli will acquire the shape of the light. The wisehearted do not know how to do everything, only how to prepare themselves for the light to work on them.

Why is the engagement with garments possible only from this point onward?

Clothing is the intentions to bestow.

So are the wisehearted intentions?

The wisehearted are those who prepare themselves for correction. When it comes, it brings them garments.

From The Zohar: And You Shall Command

When it writes, “And you,” it means to include Divinity in the command and in the speech. The upper light, ZA, and the bottom light, Nukva, are included together in the word, “And you,” since “you” is the name of the Nukva, and the added Vav [“and”] is ZA, as it is written, “And You preserve them all,” relating to ZA and Nukva.

ZoharforAll, Tetzaveh (Command), items1-2

Zeir Anpin is the Creator, the upper force, the light that reaches us. We who want to connect build the Nukva. Although she herself does not exist, this part was left after the breaking. The soul has broken and its pieces are scattered. As much as we may want to connect, we cannot. However, we have the tendency toward it, and accordingly, the light affects us and connects us. If there is additional inclination, additional light influences us and connects us.

This is why our work is called “day-to-day,” as in “Day to day pours forth speech” (Psalms, 19:3). This is how we arrive at the end of the year, the Day of Atonement that connects us and leads us to all the corrections. This is when we atone for our iniquities.

Yet, these are not our own iniquities. Rather, it is the breaking; from the time of the breaking of Adam HaRishon, before we were created, since “the inclination in a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). When we scrutinize these matters and want to overcome them and connect above all gaps and hatred, and achieve love, we reach the foot of Mount Sinai.

Why is Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) considered the holiest day?

It is the point of contact of all the desires that one has prepared to connect with everyone into a single Kli to be in Dvekut with the Creator. That is, it is the implementation of our work in this world, in which we must achieve the revelation of the Creator, unity, and love of others. Yom Kippur symbolizes it.

Is it a specific day in the year?

No, a day is a degree. If a person performs all the corrections, the degree that one reaches is called Yom Kippur. It could happen on any of the days in the year because it is not a day but a spiritual state.

What is so special about this day that only the quality known as the “high priest” makes the required correction in the Holy of Holies?

A person adds all the corrections on the still, vegetative, animate, and speaking levels in their final form and achieves Dvekut. It has to be “world,” “year,” “soul,” and “place.” That is, a person arranges all the desires—still, vegetative, and animate—the clothes, which are also the cover of the tent, all of one’s garments from the vegetative. The animate are the offerings of Yom Kippur. The high priest is a result of the whole of humanity, from all the corrections on the human, speaking level.

If a person joins them all together on the special day called Yom Kippur, it brings one to the point of Dvekut with the Creator. This is the highest place that can be achieved, from which one achieves the end of correction and rises to a higher dimension.

From The Zohar: Blow the Horn [Shofar] on the New Moon

Thus, “Serve the Lord with gladness,” since man’s joy draws another joy, the higher one. Similarly, the lower world, Malchut, as it is crowned, so it extends from above. This is why Israel hurry to awaken a sound in the Shofar, which includes fire, wind, and water, the middle line, which consists of three lines that became one and rises upwards.

ZoharforAll, Tetzaveh (Command), item 94

The three lines talk about the work of the priests—Priest, Levite, and Israel—meaning about our work. There are two Klipot (shell/peels): the Klipa (singular for Klipot) of the right, which is Ishmael, and the Klipa of the left, being Esau. Right and left are our work, our will to receive opposite which is the desire to bestow, and the extent to which we can add these desires by removing the Klipot Ishmael and Esau.

This is how we build the middle line, the line of Dvekut, called Adam. On this line, the more we connect among us all the desires, all our intentions in order to achieve similarity with the Creator, bestowal and love of others—and from there to the love of the Creator—the more we ascend in our connection. If we achieve unity in that line, we have reached the purpose of creation.

We must understand that the current changes the world is going through, the myriad problems, the global crisis, are all signs we must begin to connect, since only by that will we be able to resolve the crisis.

This is the reason for the current surfacing of the wisdom of Kabbalah—the light that reforms, the illuminating menorah that can shine to those who want to sanctify themselves and get to the Temple, to realize their task in the world. Today we are in the midst of the actual realization of the portion, “Command.”

The Creator sounds like a forceful, domineering force, while the creature is in a state of constant sin and request for forgiveness. It is a rather complicated system.

For what should one ask forgiveness? If it is written, “I have created the evil inclination,”[4] then the Creator has created it. What then is there to ask forgiveness for? On the contrary, we should demand, “I want You to correct what You have created in me.” It is called, “My sons defeated Me.”[5] The Creator will welcome it. We misconstrue the Torah by thinking that we are sinners, while the sin is not in us. Our only sin is not requesting correction. What is in us did not come from us; we cannot blame ourselves for how we were born.

We should say in regard to all our qualities, characters, and all that we are, “Go to the craftsman who made me.”[6] We are not to blame. The fault, the blemish, is that we do not examine ourselves and ask for correction so as to be similar to the Creator—bestowing, loving others, benevolent.

When a person does not reveal and does not ask for correction, this is when one is at fault. However, we did not commit the transgression for which we have a demand. It is simply something with which to come and demand contact with the Creator, a constant dialog with Him. The evil inclination is “help made against us.” On the one hand, it removes us from the Creator. On the other hand, it gives us an “official approval” to come and connect with Him.

In A Nutshell

The portion, Teruma (Donation), deals primarily with the building of the tabernacle. The Creator instructs Moses to tell the children of Israel, “And they shall take for Me a donation from every man whose heart moves him you shall take My donation” (Exodus, 25:2). The donations were intended for the building of the tabernacle and its tools—the ark of the covenant, the ark-cover, the showbread table, the Menorah (lamp), the boards of the tabernacle, the sockets, the veil, the copper altar, and the hangings of the court. The Creator also tells Moses how to build the tabernacle. The portion is called Teruma (donation) because of the commandment to donate.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

All we have is the building of the tabernacle. This is where the Creator is revealed, and this is where He resides. We must build it through a donation, and by raising the importance of the quality of bestowal and love of others (in Hebrew, the word Teruma (donation) also pertains to Harama (raising), as in, “raising the Hey”)[1]. The more we extol the quality of bestowal and use it properly, the more we correct our Kelim (vessels), namely our desires, which we currently use for ourselves, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination…”[2]

The building of the tabernacle explains the process of our correction from the easiest to the hardest as we gradually build the tabernacle from our lightest, to our heaviest, greatest, and most egoistic desires.

The donation to the tabernacle must come from the heart, which contains all the desires. Only one who is driven by impulse in the heart is permitted to offer a donation, and from this “investment” one builds one’s Kelim. The Kelim are the connections between us, which establish the tabernacle. In the tabernacle appears the upper force, the Creator, according to one’s equivalence of form. That is, we discover the Creator to the extent of our similarity to Him.

The Creator is a hidden force. We are not inherently born with tools to discover Him because we do not possess qualities that are similar to His. For example, we hear sounds because our eardrums react to certain frequencies. Likewise, we can tell different smells because we have olfactory neurons that detect them. These are our Kelim (in Hebrew, Kelim means both “vessels” but also “tools”). However, we are devoid of tools to “detect” the upper force, the Creator, the source of energy.

Yet, everything moves and exists by this force. Its source, however, is hidden from us, as is the direction of its movement, its “vector,” goal, and why it moves and operates everything.

This knowledge is revealed in the tabernacle as we correct and construct ourselves according to the influence of the upper force, in equivalence of form with it. Equivalence of form means that if He is good and does it, if He loves the bad, as well as the good[3] , we must also achieve the state of “love your neighbor as yourself.”[4] We build the tabernacle according to the gradual correction of our desires from egoism to bestowal and love.

The Torah and the Talmud teach us that the tabernacle with all its details symbolize the correction of the soul. It is not about the construction of a beautiful building in Jerusalem, nor is it about physical tools. Rather, it is about man’s heart, man’s internal correction.

It is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice,”[5] because “the light in it reforms.”[6] This is why it is written that only a person with a good heart should donate, for by that, one truly wishes to correct one’s heart.

The donation is a gradual removal of egoistic desires that can be corrected from a state of separation and hatred of others to bestowal and love of others.

The portion seemingly relates primarily to people who wish to sanctify themselves, build themselves in such a way that that source of energy, that superior quality, appears in them so they may know where life and all our energy come from and why, and where they are headed.

Because of the comprehensive crisis we are in, we need information about this process. Without it, we will not know what to do. Those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah discover how they should proceed in life.

In the past, if we encountered problems we knew how to overcome them because the world had not yet become round, global. But today, as the world has become that, the general law is appearing, making it possible to understand it and to work with it unless we ourselves become round. Now we are required to come out of ourselves, of the personal and individualistic mindset, and begin to connect with others. According to the common force appearing between us, namely the Creator—who is appearing between us as the dweller of the tabernacle—we will discover how to resolve the comprehensive crisis.

This is what makes this portion so pertinent. As soon as we begin to follow the requirement of the Torah to build a tabernacle from out hearts, even to the slightest bit, we will begin to understand what is required of us in order to restore balance. When we understand the law of balance, namely the general law of reality, we will know how to resolve the crisis. Today we are perplexed and bewildered over what we must do with ourselves in the future. This is why we are being shown escalating destruction that cannot be resolved, not even through war or other tragic events.

Therefore, we need to promote circulation of the wisdom of Kabbalah to show the solution to everything. This is the reason why Kabbalah is appearing here and now, so we may use the tools given to us properly. All we need is to fix them a little, and to gradually understand the Creator, reveal Him, and advance toward correction of the crisis, toward a happy life.

Questions and Answers

It seems that the more we try to put order in the world, the more disorder we create.

This is true only if we act on our reason.

This is the situation today; everyone is trying to put things in order; no one wants disorder.

True. Nature is drawn toward balance. We can see that if one place is hotter than another, after sometime the temperatures balance themselves out. Likewise, if there is high air pressure in one place and low air pressure in another, the wind equalizes the pressure. This is how the whole of nature operates. Nature’s movement always aims toward balance—from atoms through molecules, and to every part of nature.

There are elements in nature where it seems as though there is no need to add energy. Electrons, for example, endlessly rotate in high speed. And yet, there must be energy propelling this constant movement. We have no idea where they receive the energy for it, but it is only because that energy lies beneath the threshold of our senses.

Conversely, we know how many calories we must consume in order to function, or how much energy we have to spend in order to operate a machine. We test our energy sources, such as oil and gas, and build power plants and water drills using this energy. In truth, everything is in imbalance between those two levels, between the minus and the plus, and using the tension between them we build various things, such as batteries.

Today we are witnessing a depletion of energy sources; we are running out of gas.

We will receive the energy from the Creator. He is wearing us out on purpose so we may switch to energy on a higher level and learn how to use it properly.

What, therefore, is the contemporary tabernacle? Is it the relationships between us that we must establish in this manner?

Yes, we have no choice. If we establish proper connections between us—of love or at least of Arvut (mutual guarantee), namely become responsible for one another—and understand that we are parts of a single system, we will discover the power source and its program (software). Then we will learn what is right and how to use it properly.

We are talking about an energy that induces equilibrium in movements between negative and positive. How is this energy, which we called the “tabernacle,” to make this equilibrium happen?

We do not discover the energy in the tabernacle, but rather its source, the Creator. The energy, the force we receive from Him, is the power of bestowal. This the power that is missing in the world. There is plenty of matter in the world; all that is missing is the power to activate it, the power of bestowal. These days we are learning how incapable we are of working with the powers we do have. The problem is that we have no shortage of negative energy, but of positive one.

When we connect “as one man with one heart” (RASHI, Exodus, 19b), according to Moses’ explanation concerning the building of the tabernacle, through that bonding we come to the place where the quality of the Creator appears, namely the upper force. This is the source of energy we call “light.” Indeed, even physics regards light as the “highest” form of energy.

When we are in balance, we are certain to succeed. Moreover, success is not only in this transient life, but also in connection to the upper force, as we flow in the flow of eternal life in accord with it.

Following the tabernacle, will we receive the right kind of energy?

We will receive it in the tabernacle. The Creator is revealed in the tabernacle, which consists of only our corrected desires and the bonding with alien and different desires that were previously hateful and resentful toward each other. By leaping over them and uniting appears that upper force.

From The Zohar: You Shall Make the Tabernacle with Ten Curtains

The establishing of the tabernacle is from several degrees, for it is written about it, “And the tabernacle was one,” showing that all the organs of the body of the tabernacle are of a single body. It is like a person who has several high and low organs. The internal ones are inside, and the revealed ones are outside. However, all are considered one body, and it is considered one person in one bonding. So is the tabernacle: all the organs are such as above, and when they all unite as one, it is written, “And the tabernacle was one.”

This is how we discover the single force called “the upper force,” which we must discover. Without discovering it we gradually lose vitality, as is evident in the tendency that we are witnessing today.

How will the new order of feeling as one be revealed?

Through the deficiency. First we must understand that we are incompetent, we cannot succeed. By searching for the element by which we can succeed, we will discover the futility of these efforts. This—coupled with the development and circulation of the wisdom of Kabbalah through mutual guarantee—is when people will understand that we have no alternatives but to gradually connect to that eternal, complete, omnipotent and omniscient power supply, which is not only a source of energy, but much more than that.

By and large, when people give a Teruma (donation), they want to be honored, remembered, and then the donation acquires an additional value. Is this the right direction?

It is not. Teruma relates to the connection of the hearts. If a person attempts to use the donation in order to gain respect, notoriety, or appreciation as a great person, even if no one else knows of this ambition, it is still an egoistic fulfillment since that person does not connect to others, but rather patronizes them.

How can this change so that it truly becomes a donation for the Creator?

Helplessness will make people feel differently. Disseminating the wisdom of Kabbalah adds great powers to this transformation. It may seem like we are not doing much, but these actions are inducing many revelations of the Creator in the world. For now that revelation is on a level where people are headed toward that direction—searching, feeling that the connection between them can save them. We are seeing the riots in the world from the positive side, as well as from the (ostensibly) negative one. Through them we will discover that our only hope is to connect, that only connection will provide us with the force of life.

The donation is the connection. If we appreciate the power of bestowal it is called “donating.” On the one hand, we extol it; on the other hand, we feel how lowly and base we are. The world is round, integral. It can be saved only through unity, and we are aware that we are the opposite of unity. We know we need the upper force to influence and connect us so we are in accord with nature, with the global world.

How do we know that the Creator desires him and places His abode within him? When we see that man’s will is to chase and to exert after the Creator with his heart, soul, and will, we know for certain that Divinity is present there. Then we need to buy that man for the full cost, bond with him and learn from him. We learn about that, “And buy yourself a friend.”[7] He should be bought for the full price to be rewarded with the Divinity that is in him. This is how far we must chase a righteous man and buy him.

People who do not understand the meaning of the term, “donation,” think it is about money. However, donation pertains to a Masach (screen), which one projects from oneself, sacrificing of oneself.

It is written, “Buy yourself a friend.” That is, one annuls one’s own ego and connects to another, wanting to break down the partition between them. Our hearts inherently want to be individualistic, egoistic, removed from others. And yet, we must be the exact opposite. If we want to connect to someone, we must be lower than that someone. This is the meaning of connecting, namely the donation. It is not as we are used to think about it; it is one who is willing to donate oneself—the heart and all of one’s desires and capabilities. When we donate we become included in others and thus connect.

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Mishpatim (Ordinances), the Creator gives to Moses a collection of laws and judgments pertaining to various topics: between man and man, Hebrew slaves, Hebrew maidservant, murder, theft, lending money, and others. The Creator also dictates laws concerning man and God, meat and dairy foods, the Sabbath, Shmita (year of omission, refraining from growing crops), etc.

Moses conveys to the children of Israel the message that the Creator will help them enter the land of Israel, and warns them about practicing idolatry. Moses reads before them from the book of covenant, and the people reply, “We will do and we will hear” (Exodus, 24:7). Moses builds an altar and offers sacrifices to the Creator, and a covenant is signed between the people and the Creator. Moses carries out the Creator’s command, ascends Mount Sinai to receive the tablets of the covenant, accompanied by his servant, Joshua, and stays there forty days and forty nights.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

In the portion, Mishpatim (Ordinances), Moses ascends Mount Sinai although he had already received all the laws and ordinances and the children of Israel had already kept the Torah and the laws regarding the offerings. This tells us that laws and ordinances are one thing, and the Torah is another.

The portion details all the laws of the spiritual world, everything a person needs to do. In order to be able to do it we must receive the Torah. The Torah was given because “I have created the evil inclination, I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”[1] That is, one is shown who one is compared to what one should be at the degree of “man,” in a state of loving others and connection among everyone, a state of correction of all the egoistic desires.

This is why the laws come first. One who begins to study the wisdom of Kabbalah understands that first one must correct oneself, one’s attitude toward the group, toward the people, and toward the world. There are many internal corrections of the evil inclination that one must perform. When one understands what one must do is when the time of reception of the Torah arrives. A person learns to receive the light that corrects one during the study.

This is how we gradually obtain the upper world, the Creator, the upper force that fills the upper world. This is why it was said, “We will do and we will hear”: first we must do, and then—in the corrected Kelim (vessels) that we build—we discover the Creator filling those Kelim.

The portion explains the structure of the soul because it is all there is. Although we are living in the soul now, too, we feel and understand this world within the soul to a very limited degree, still (inanimate) degree. The portion tells us how to open up the soul, the Kli (vessel), and how to correct and expand it. This allows us to transcend the boundaries of this world.

When we correct all the levels in the soul, namely the corrupt the desires, we open them up and discover within them the higher dimension, the upper world. Thus, in addition to our perception of this world, we also feel the upper world, as it is written, “You will see your world in your life.”[2] The Torah was given to us in order to open ourselves up to the perception of the spiritual world, so we could live in both worlds through our present perception, through our bodies, until we understand that it isn’t really our body.

Today, the entire world, the whole of humanity, is in a crisis. It is a stage of transitioning from the perception of this world into the perception of the additional, spiritual world.

In conferences that discuss the future of the world, scientists and psychologists claim that the whole of humanity is in transition to a new perception. We therefore see that we are shifting to new laws and a new perception of reality.

Mishpatim is pertinent today, as well, as we are discovering that we do not know the rules affecting our world, making it difficult for us to cope with it. When we begin to know the world, we will discover that to cope with it we need the Torah, an instruction, for “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice.”

We should recognize that we do not have the power of the light that reforms, the Torah of light, namely the wisdom of Kabbalah, by which to achieve the correction of human nature. With the corrected nature we will see the new, expanded reality.

When Moses arrives with Joshua at Mount Sinai, he leaves him below and ascends. He stays on the mountain for “forty days and forty nights” (Genesis, 7:4) in order to receive the power of the Torah. This is considered that he has risen a degree.

Man is a small world. Therefore, we must come to see that the whole of reality is in us. Within us are all the laws, all the ordinances, the people of Israel, all the parts of our will to receive that we must arrange as the structure of the soul. We leave what is considered “Joshua” below, while Moses climbs to the top of the mountain. When we set up the picture correctly at the stage of our spiritual progress called “the portion, Mishpatim,” we advance toward attaining the goal of creation. In that state, we feel as one who is climbing up the mountain and is already in contact with the Creator.

Questions and Answers

The portion details many rules, such as concerning Hebrew slaves, and meat and dairy foods. These are divided into to parts: between man and man, and between man and God. On the one hand, we say that everything is about relations between people. On the other hand, we say that everything is about connecting to the Creator; why do we make that division?

All the rules were intended for the correction of the soul, meaning our will to receive. All that was created is the will to receive, and each of us is immersed in our own will to receive. The will to receive is divided into ten Sephirot: Keter, Hochma, Bina, Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. It is also divided into three lines, into five Behinot (discernments), and into Aviut (thickness, levels of desire) Shoresh (root)-1-2-3-4. It contains everything.

We are living inside our will to receive, which is called a Neshama (soul), and the Creator is the general force of bestowal, of love. When inside our will to receive, and not in bestowal and love, we do not discover the Creator in our soul; He is hidden. We can discover Him only if we correct our will to receive so it works in order to bestow, in love of others. In the process appears the force of bestowal and love, called “the Creator.”

So how do we correct it and how do we approach the correction? The whole world is mistaken in that question. Everyone thinks that they understand what we need to do in life; this is why there are so many religions and belief systems. But none but real Kabbalists have any clear notion.

In fact, our Torah is very simple. It is even written, “It is one, easy thing.”[3] A person needs to join a group that engages only is in love of friends, and that this is its goal. If we are “as one man with one heart,”[4] we will receive the Torah. If we do not, here will be our burial, as it is written, “If you receive the Torah (law), very well; if you do not, there will it be your burial.”[5] That is, everything relates to connection.

There are two stages in love of humanity. First, there is “that which you hate, do not do to your friend.”[6] Next, there is “love your neighbor as yourself … it is a great rule in the Torah.”[7] Both stages are to be carried out in a group. In a group we learn all the rules concerning man and man.

When we understand, know, and have mastered these laws, and can feel and sense them, we understand how to advance from the love of man to the love of God, the Creator. This is when we ascend to a state of “and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deuteronomy, 6:5). In that state we acquire the mind, heart, understanding, and the inclination toward it when we engage in love of others. This is why we go from loving people into love of the Creator.

There are rules concerning man and man, and there are rules concerning man and God. Why do we feel it is easier to observe the commandments concerning man and God?

It is easier because when we perform Mitzvot concerning man and God we feel that we can say anything. It is enough to shove a note into a crack in the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem to calm ourselves. It is nice; we get no response; no one tells us if we are right or wrong, if it is enough or not. However, toward friends, relatives, general people, the nation, state, and humanity, we need to actually reach the goal—to scrutinize whether we love them or not.

“Love” means that one takes the desires of others and satisfies them however one can, caring for them before caring for one’s own. This is the meaning of love. It is serving others in every way, instead of serving myself. Today it seems impossible, so it is easier to cover it up by saying, “Don’t worry, I get on with the Creator.” However, this leads us very far from the true Torah.

From The Zohar: Administer Justice in the Morning

Why did the Creator see fit to give the Dinim to Israel, meaning the portion Mishpatim [Ordinances], after the ten commandments? The Torah was given to Israel from the side of Gevura. For this reason, they must establish peace among them through judgments and ordinances, so that the Torah will be kept on all its sides. The world exists only on Din, for without the Din it would not exist. And for this reason, the world was created in Din and exists.

Zoharfor All, Mishpatim (Ordinances), item 517

The world leaves by judgment because the Creator created only the will to receive, an egoistic desire that wants to satisfy itself and feel good. There is nothing in reality but the desire to bestow, which is the upper force, and the desire to receive, which is the force of the creature. All that exists is the balance between these two forces. We can also see how it unfolds in the order of the worlds, in Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, how it is rooted and hangs down to this world.

This world, too, is built on four basic principles. If they did not exist it would not be possible to sustain the universe with all its stars, the earth, and life upon it. These four principles exist in atoms, and in the relations between the parts of the atom.

The will to receive is the foundation. When we begin to work with that foundation in order to bestow, we permeate creation. We have never done this because we have always been using only those laws that are in us egoistically.

Until now we have been following the path paved for us by nature. Now, for the first time, once we have come to the wisdom of Kabbalah, we are beginning to seemingly work against our nature. This is why this work is called “My sons defeated Me,”[8] because we are seemingly going against the Creator.

The Creator created the evil inclination and we turn it into a good inclination. We open ourselves up to a completely new reality. Only in this world are we feeling only our nature.

As it is written in The Zohar, the corrections are through the correction of Gevura, which is why we become Gevarim, from the Hebrew word Hitgabrut (to overcome). That is, we rise above our egos and enter the world that is above the ego, the other world—the world of bestowal.

The Book of Zohar is special because of the influence of the light on our correction. Never in history has there been another an event where ten great Kabbalists gathered, each corresponding to a different Sephira at the head of the system of governance. They assembled and wrote the master plan of governance and guidance of the whole of reality first-hand. In fact, they were in that source themselves.

Therefore, when reading what they wrote, we draw on ourselves that light so it may sanctify us and bring us to the level of Bina, which is called “holy” or “sanctified,” meaning bestowal—love of others. This is when we receive our best weapon against our egos.

From The Zohar: The Grandfather

Many are the people in the world whose minds are confused and they do not see truthfully in the Torah. Each day, the Torah calls upon them with love for them, yet they do not wish to turn their heads back and listen to her. In the Torah, a thing comes out of its sheath, appears briefly, and promptly hides. When it appears out of the sheath and promptly hides, the Torah does it only for those who know her and are known in her.

… So is a word of Torah: it appears only to the one who loves her. The Torah knows that that wise of heart circles the gate to her house each day. What does she do? She shows her face from within the palace, gives him a hint, and promptly returns to her place and hides. All those from there neither know nor look, but he alone, whose guts and heart, and soul follow her. This is why the Torah appears and covers, and goes to her loved one with love, to awaken the love with him.

Zoharfor All, Mishpatim (Ordinances), items 97-99

When we need to reveal, we also need to conceal. And yet, it is particularly when we conceal that we reveal. This is the Torah—the Megila of Esther (the story of Esther). It becomes Meguleh (revealed) particularly in concealment. The more one conceals one’s ego, the more one reveals the place above the ego, where the Creator appears. This is the oppositeness that people do not understand. Our senses cannot perceive it because the technique of concealment and disclosure is built on oppositeness.

What do the commandments that the portion discusses mean?

All commandments are laws pertaining to the soul. Meat and dairy foods correspond to right and left, and observing the Sabbath pertains to the prohibition to touch the last part of the will to receive, which for now remains unattended to because we haven’t the strength for it. Only once we complete all of our corrections and reach the seventh millennium, after six thousand years—the six days of working on our corrections, our will to receive—we will reach the Sabbath, namely rest. On Sabbath we avoid touching desires that pertain to the seventh part.

The portion describes humanity seemingly jumping a degree; what is that jump?

When Moses and the people of Israel approach Mount Sinai, the nature they are in—which they must correct—appears to them. Today that state of required correction is gradually appearing before humanity, and many academic and scientific conferences around the world are discussing the correction that humanity is going through.

Yes, and people will begin to talk about it. They will understand it and feel it. We are changing each day. A new awareness, new sensation, new perception is coming to the world making people more sensitive. All of a sudden we can perceive that there is another dimension outside of us, that we are living in our egos, inside our will to receive, and that this is where we perceive reality. We feel through our desires. Should they change, we will perceive a different reality, as it is written, “I saw an opposite world.”[9]

What does it mean to see an opposite world?

All the laws of Torah were meant only to explain how to discover laws that are opposite from us, how to move from love of self to love of others. This is the meaning of being opposite.

In A Nutshell

The portion, Jethro, starts with Jethro, priest of Midian, coming out with Zipporah and Moses’ two sons to meet Moses and the nation, which has come out of Egypt. Jethro gives to Moses some organizational tips regarding how to judge the people, explaining that he should divide them into ministers of thousands, ministers of hundreds, ministers of fifty, and ministers of ten.

The children of Israel arrive at Sinai Desert on the third month of their exodus from Egypt, as it is written, “And Israel camped there, before the mountain” (Exodus, 19:2). Moses climbs Mount Sinai and the Creator tells him, “And now, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be to Me a Segula (chosen/virtue/remedy) out of all the nations, for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. These are the words that you shall speak to the children of Israel” (Exodus, 19:5-6).

Moses informs the elders of the people about the words of the Creator, and they say, “All that the Lord has spoken we will do” (Exodus 19:8). The Creator commands the people through Moses to sanctify themselves for two days, and be ready on the third day, for this is when the Creator will appear before the whole nation.

On the third day, the children of Israel stand at the bottom of the mountain, but they do not want to meet the Creator face to face, so Moses and Aaron climb Mount Sinai and Moses brings down the Ten Commandments.

The children of Israel ask Moses to speak to them instead of the Creator because they are afraid to die. Moses explains to them that they need not fear because the Creator is coming down in order to test them, and to set the fear of Him in them so they will not sin.

The Creator instructs Moses to tell the children of Israel that because they saw Him speaking with them they are forbidden to make gods of silver and gold. Instead, they must build an altar on the ground and sacrifice on it.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Jethro, priest of Midian, is not from Israel. He is from the will to receive in order to receive, a Klipa (shell/peel) that has been mitigated by Moses. Jethro rises and connects to Moses through his Nukva (female), his daughter Zipporah, with whom Moses has two sons. This is the big and broken will to receive that the Moses in us is gradually correcting.

When Moses comes to Jethro after he has fled, a connection is made between the point in the heart, Moses, and the ego. Thus, a correction is made so that afterward it will be easier for a person to make corrections on the more advanced stages.

The correction helps one begin to divide oneself into tens, fifties, hundreds, and thousands, meaning to build the structure of the soul. The whole Torah deals with the construction of our soul and how we turn our egoistic desire into a desire with the aim to bestow. When the desire acquires the aim to bestow, it is called a “soul.”

The force of reception is called the “self,” “this world.” Everything I see and everything I feel is the force of reception. The force of bestowal is exit from reception. When I work in order to bestow, in “love your neighbor as yourself,”[1] I obtain my soul. My inner Moses is pulling away from the quality of reception toward the quality of bestowal, bringing me out of myself, and allowing me to see the upper world and begin to feel the Creator.

The Book of Zohar speaks about it in great detail in the portion, Jethro, but it is still not easy to grasp. It concerns the three lines, the structure of the soul, reception, bestowal, and the middle line, which is the proper combination between them. The Zohar describes how to divide the soul—first into ten Sephirot, according to the Ten Commandments, then according to the three lines, which is thirty. There is also a division into Rosh, Toch, Sof (head, interior, end respectively), and there are many other inner divisions that include the Sephira (singular for Sephirot) Daat.

When we relate to ourselves as coming out of Egypt, examining ourselves from the outside, we examine how we can use our egos to advance us spiritually, toward the aim to bestow. We go through difficult situations such as the escape from Egypt, the tearing of the Red Sea, until we reach Mount Sinai. This is how we build ourselves on the way to correction—through Jethro’s counsels, as well as though actions.

Being at the foot of Mount Sinai requires preparation. This is the “main event,” when we meet the Creator. While we are in the dark, we do not understand why we need to advance. We follow the point in our hearts, Moses.

In a sense, Moses helps us out of Egypt when we escape in the dark. However, we are not conscious participants in this process. At the foot of Mount Sinai is where the upper force first appears to us. This is when we begin to understand our own essence and the essence of the upper force, as well as how to relate to our situation and the way we need to move forward.

In this portion, the first awareness happens. With it awaken all of man’s desires, called “the people,” or the “nation,” and they are afraid. These desires still cannot connect to the Creator; they cannot see or hear Him. They tell Moses, “You speak.” This is the state at which we arrive from the exile, Egypt, our ego. We begin to hear a little bit only by coming down from Keter (crown), which is the Creator. This process unfolds through Hochma and Bina—when Moses and Aaron begin to bring down the great light that appears to the will to receive as laws, as the Ten Commandments, beginning with the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Exodus, 20:2), and ends with the final commandment.

The Ten Commandments include all 620 Mitzvot (commandments). These are 620 corrections, which are 613 plus seven Mitzvot of our sages, by which we have to correct our desires. That is, we consist of 620 desires that divide into 613+7 desires.

The 613 Mitzvot connect within them into 248 and 365, and these comprise the structure of the soul. The soul itself consists of ten parts, ten Sephirot, and their correction is called Ten Mitzvot, or Ten Commandments, which are the primary Mitzvot that were given to man. We ascend according to our position, by how we stand before the light that appears to us. Hearing is the degree of Bina, and seeing is the degree of Hochma.

One who has gone through the entire process and has come out of Egypt rises above the ego and is willing to receive the program of bestowal, the program of connecting with the whole of humanity. Such a person is ready for the revelation of Godliness in the connection between all people, as it is written, “Love your neighbor as yourself; Rabbi Akiva says, ‘It is a great rule in the Torah.’”[2] This rule is both the foundation and the result of keeping the Ten Commandments, with the goal being Keter, achieving love, and through the love of others to achieve the love of the Creator.

In our current state, part of humanity is discovering it is in Egypt, another part is discovering that it wants to come out of Egypt, and a part is discovering how to come out and advance toward Mount Sinai. We are beginning to feel we are in the dark, in a process we do not understand. Each day our need for the light is growing, for the revelation of the Creator, for it to shine a tiny illumination on our lives so we may understand what is happening to us.

We need to fix Jethro, the egoistic will to receive, as it is written, “If one should tell you, ‘there is wisdom in the nations, believe.”[3] If Moses did not connect to the desire called Jethro, he would not receive from him the knowledge of judgment and ruling, which is a necessary part for the reception of the Torah.

By disseminating the method of correction to the nations of the world, the method of Arvut (mutual guarantee), and by circulating the necessity for the wisdom of Kabbalah, we are doing the work that Moses did with Jethro. By that we will be rewarded with standing at the foot of Mount Sinai.

In the portion, Jethro, the people of Israel receives the Ten Commandments. This may be the most important portion because the Torah is correction. So why is this portion named after an “external” desire, Jethro?

Jethro is the priest of Midian, a Klipa that stands opposite. He is one of Pharaoh’s servants, similar to other forces that stood next to the will to receive and helped Pharaoh connect and elicit as much as possible from the desire to bestow—Israel. The Zohar appears to be writing bad things about him, but he is help made against us. After all, everything is within us.

What comes out of Egypt is Kelim (vessels), meaning desires. In the desires that come out there is still no intention to work with the will to receive. Moses, the force of Bina, wants to judge the will to receive, which is detached from him. Even while standing before Pharaoh, he wanted to draw the will to receive, though not in order to connect or to elicit anything from it, but to judge it. However, he was unsuccessful.

When we arrive at the state that exists between Moses and the nation that has come out of Egypt, including the mixed multitude and all the layers that oppose the process of bestowal and love of others, there has to be a special system built according to the will to receive, according to corporeality. Moses cannot build it; he can only give from above, seemingly “pouring down,” this is not absorbed in the people. As it is written, Moses grows tired, and the people, who cannot find the right connection, stands next to him all day.

We cannot find the proper relationship between our desire upward, toward the Creator, and our egos—in the family, at work, and in the rest of our worldly life. We need a system that will provide us with Jethro. The wisdom must come specifically from the will to receive, as it is written, “If one should tell you, ‘there is wisdom in the nations, believe.” Although it does not belong to the degree of Bina, it was previously included in it, when Moses spent forty years with Jethro. Moses grew to the degree of Bina with Jethro; now Jethro is seemingly paying back.

Does Jethro put order between Moses and the desires so that Moses can free himself for the real thing—the receiving of the Torah?

Jethro returns to Moses what he received from him when Moses was with him. Moses came to Jethro after fleeing from Pharaoh. He grew while at Jethro’s from the degree of Malchut to the degree of Bina, pure bestowal. He grew at Jethro’s home and “over” Jethro, through his connection with Zipporah and the two sons that he had—from the right and from the left, with him in the middle. Everything that Moses has given to Jethro and instilled in him is now returning to him—Jethro, Zipporah, and the two sons. There was a mingling of Bina in Malchut, and now Malchut is giving back to Bina.

In this way Moses can now build the entire system of connecting Bina to Malchut, and he is ready to receive the Torah. This is why the first encounter with the Creator is named after Jethro, since precisely because of the system that was built before, it is now possible to reach the state of being at Mount Sinai.

On the one hand, the children of Israel were afraid of turning to the Creator for fear of dying. On the other hand, it is known that the Creator receives specifically prayers that come from the heart. So where does the fear come from? Why were the children of Israel afraid?

Our will to receive is still not equipped with a Masach (screen) that can withstand the light. That is, the light still seems like darkness. What is the exodus from Egypt in the dark? There is no dark, but it seems dark to us because we are still not corrected. The Aramaic word Ohrta (night) is very similar to the Hebrew word Ohr (light). That is, at one time it is night, and at another time it is light, depending on how a person experiences it.

They all shook and looked at Jethro, who was wise and the great appointee over all the idols of the world. When they saw him approaching and serving the Creator, saying, “Now I know that the Lord is greater than all the gods,” they all veered away from their works and knew that they were futile. Then the glory of the holy Name of the Creator was glorified on all sides. This is why this portion was written in the Torah, and the beginning of the portion is with Jethro.

Zoharfor All, Jethro, item 42

Jethro is the first will to receive that surrenders and accepts the sovereignty of the Creator. This is why this portion is named after him. The Zohar also mentions Gematria, why Jethro is called Jethro, why Zipporah is called Zipporah, and all the other events in the portion.

In this portion we hear that the children of Israel camped at the foot of Mount Sinai. What does it mean to camp there?

Camping is similar to what happens on Hanukah. It is clear that we cannot correct our ego at that time, but only take an advice, a way, a program, a goal that can be implemented over time according to the level of our understanding of the program. Only at the end of the desert, at the entrance to the land of Israel, does the people discover everything that Moses said to them in his final words prior to his demise.

From The Zohar: You Shall Not Kill; You Shall Not Commit Adultery

When that filth was removed from them, Israel remained pure bodies without any filth, and the soul inside the body was as the brightness of the firmament to receive light. So were Israel, who saw and regarded the glory of their master. This was not so on the sea because the filth was not removed from them at that time, while here in Sinai, when the filth stopped from the body, even fetuses in their mothers’ intestine saw and looked at the glory of their Master. All of them, each and every one, received as befitted him.

Zoharfor All, Jethro, items 572-573

Spiritual ascension can be the result of two states—an awakening from above and an awakening from below. In an awakening from above, the light shines from above and sanctifies the person, giving one the force of bestowal through which one begins to look into the distance against one’s ego. Such a person sees the world outside oneself, the spiritual world. That person knows the upper force, the Creator. An awakening from below comes from the person through extensive work on connecting with others. When one collects awakenings from everyone, one reaches the same awakening as the one that can be received from above.

Naturally, our own work from below is more desirable and appreciated because if we collect the forces from the friends, and each of them collects strength from the friends, as well, and each has his or her own strength, that force becomes permanently theirs. Here a person is seemingly camping only to take advice as to what to do. To hear the advice, one must wake up. It is similar to the exodus from Egypt through a force from above, an external force that pushes us and pulls us. But afterward we must actualize the forces we have received during the forty years in the desert.

Something special happens at Mount Sinai, purification, a special force we receive.

The light that affects us is called “the light that reforms.” It is written, “I have created the evil inclination; I have created for it the Torah as a spice”[4] because “the light in it reforms them.”[5] It reforms the evil inclination and makes it good. Initially, we are all in the evil inclination, egoists, and all we need is the Torah, assuming it is the real Torah, as it is written, “If one should tell you, ‘there is wisdom in the nations, believe; there is Torah in the nations, do not believe.”[6]

A “person from the nations” is a desire to receive that wants to receive for itself. Israel is one who strives to achieve bestowal, love of others, and from the love of others to achieve the love of the Creator.

This is why those how are craving are called “Israel,” and they learn the wisdom of Kabbalah because it brings the light that reforms. This is how we become sanctified, acquiring the force of bestowal and rise through it. The greater the force of bestowal one possesses, the greater the love of others, and the holier that person is considered to be.

Summary

From this portion we can learn that to an extent, our connection between the desire to bestow and the will to receive has to constantly exist. The wisdom of Kabbalah does not tell us to ruin our egos, but rather to use it correctly. This is why it is called Hochmat ha Kabbalah (the wisdom of receiving); it is the wisdom of how to use the vessels of reception.

We do not need to avoid using the vessels of reception, or to be “above” the worldly life. Rather, we need to discover the evil inclination detaching us from connection with the rest of the world, as it was said to Moses, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nations” (Exodus, 19:6). That is, the role of the people of Israel is to offer itself to the service of the rest of the world.

In A Nutshell

In the portion, BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent), Pharaoh sends the children of Israel from Egypt following the ten plagues that he and the Egyptians suffered. The Creator does not lead the children of Israel directly to the land of Israel because it means they will have to go through the land of the Philistines and the Creator does not want the children of Israel to fear war and escape back to Egypt. Instead, He sends them through the desert.

Moses takes Joseph’s bones. The Creator walks before the people, lighting the way for them with a pillar of cloud—during the day, and a pillar of fire during the night.

When Pharaoh learns that the children of Israel really did escape from Egypt he changes his mind and decides to chase them. He assembles 600 chosen chariots that chase the children of Israel all the way to the Red Sea.

The children of Israel find themselves with the sea before them and Pharaoh behind them. This is when the first miracle takes place: Moses strikes the sea, it is cut in two, and the children of Israel pass through dry land. When the Egyptians try to pass, the water closes on them and they all drown. In gratitude to the Creator for the miracle, the children of Israel sing the Song of the Sea (Exodus, 15).

Moses leads the children of Israel through the desert on the road to Shur. When the people grow thirsty they arrive at Marah, a place where the water is bitter so they cannot drink. Here another miracle occurs and the water becomes fresh (the Torah writes “sweet”). Moses and the people continue to advance toward Eilam where they discover twelve springs of water and seventy dates. They park there then continue toward the desert of Sin.

The people complain that they have run out of supplies and the Creator performs two miracles: in the first, manna comes down from the sky. In the second, quails came over the camp of Israel so they will have meat in the evening.

The children of Israel receive the first commandment—to observe the Sabbath. They are told that on Sabbath, no manna will come down from the sky and that on the sixth day they must collect supplies for two days. The children of Israel continue from the desert of Sin and arrive at Rephidim. Once again there is no water and the Creator performs another miracle: Moses strikes a rock and water gushes out of it.

Toward the arrival at Mount Sinai, Amalek appears and fights against Israel. When Moses raises his hands, Israel win; when he lowers them, Amalek wins. Finally, Israel defeat Amalek and the Creator tells Moses to write in a book of remembrance that the memory of Amalek must be blotted out from under the heaven.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

Man is born with an inherently egoistic desire to receive. However, when ascending over it, one’s perspective changes and he no longer thinks only of himself. From the moment we are born we want to use the whole world for our own benefit. This is the Amalek in us. AMALEK is an acronym for Al Menat LeKabel (in order to receive). We turn the will to receive into a spiritual quality that aims toward bestowal through a process in which each of us works on his or her self using the light that reforms.[1] The light that reforms is a force that awakens in a person who studies Kabbalah correctly, together with a group. That force awakens and a person feel the changes constantly happening within.

These are the changes that the Torah describes in this portion. Pharaoh really does send the people of Israel. That is, our ego is under stress, suffering, in a conflict between the forces operating on it to the point that it “allows” us, throws us away from itself.

In fact, we are only observing the unfolding—the Creator’s war against Amalek (Exodus, 17:16), the Creator’s war against Pharaoh, and the entire process (Exodus, 10) of hardening Pharaoh’s heart, “go on to Pharaoh,” and “come to Pharaoh.”

When the children of Israel escape from Egypt with all the Kelim, meaning desires, a person rises above the ego, but the egoistic intentions remain. In the process of development, one gradually rids oneself of them through the numerous changes one goes through in the process of exiting Pharaoh’s rule and coming under the rule of the quality of the Creator—the reign of the quality of bestowal and love of others.

In the transition from love of self to love of others, we undergo various changes that make us feel as though Pharaoh is still chasing us and we are trying to escape. At times we can run, and at times we cannot. This is why reality mandates the occurring of a miracle, meaning the influence of the upper force on a person.

The influence of the upper force on a person manifests in the sensation that a person is standing in front of the sea, with Pharaoh’s 600 chosen chariots behind, and there is nothing one can do. Each time we arrive at a point where there is nothing ahead and all the roads seem blocked, a miracle occurs. This is how we shift from degree to degree, from state to state.

The difference between the degrees is that the next degree always opens only after we have concluded the previous one, we do not know what to do, and we are desperate. Although we get used to it, we are surprised every time anew.

After the tearing of the Red Sea we arrive at the desert. A desert is a state where one cannot do anything. One has nothing with which to feed oneself; it is a state of emptiness, not knowing what to do. In that state it seems that life is not life, neither in the present nor in the future.

In the next stage, the water is bitter and must be sweetened using the staff. This means that a person elevates the desire to bestow, and degrades the desire to receive in order to receive. In this way a person achieves the degree of Bina instead of Malchut, and elevates oneself above the ego, once again breaking through to the next degree. That person arrives at a place called Eilam, where there are twelve sources of water, and food from seventy palm trees.

It happens every single time. Our egoistic will to receive awakens without our knowing what to do with it because we haven’t the strength to cope when it yells, cries, and bursts out in terror. This is when the upper force saves us. Thus, repeatedly and gradually, the exodus from Egypt takes place.

In the exodus from Egypt, we correct the will to receive step by step. We rise above it continuously until we can even fight Amalek. Moses’ hands, which rise and fall, symbolize the ascending force of Bina, and the descending MAN.

When we enter spirituality, we still have nothing with which to revive ourselves except the food from heaven. Prior to that, we were satisfying ourselves egoistically, trying to gain from everyone as much as we could. But now, in the transition to love others, altruism, bestowal, we fill ourselves with bestowal. This is why it is called “food from the sky,” the “food of heaven.”

It happens when a person is willing to come out to the “morning light,” to be in the quality of bestowal that shines over the ego, the will to receive, and in which one feels empty. When we are willing to remain in the will to receive even without fulfillment, but only in bestowal upon others, this is when the manna comes, the fulfillment from heaven.

The forty years in the desert is the period when we obtain the complete quality of bestowal. We are fed by giving to others, which is truly from heaven because who are we to give? Do we have anything to give? Why should we fulfill ourselves by giving?

This sensation, the intention we acquire over the will to receive—the inclination toward others, the connection with others—is the degree called “that which you hate, do not do to your friend.”[2] By connecting to others as to ourselves we receive the filling called MAN, Mei Nukvin (Aramaic: Female Water), which raises our will to receive to Bina, the degree of bestowal.

Many miracles take place in this portion, almost all of which concern water: the crossing of the Red Sea, the bitter water, Moses striking the rock and the water gushing out. What is a miracle and why is it so tightly connected to water specifically in this portion?

Water is the quality of bestowal, Bina. There is water of quarrelling (Meribah), bitter water, and sweet (fresh) water, drinking water. There is also “cold water to a faint soul” (Proverbs, 25:25), and there are other terms concerning water.

Water is life. As we develop in the mother’s womb we are immersed in water. Indeed, water is our whole life; we have evolved in water and then climbed out to land. Water is the quality of Bina until it emits out of itself just as the oceans begot life.

This happens every time through a miracle because we do not have the quality of bestowal, Bina, love of others, the connection with others in favor of the other. For this reason, we receive it from outside in what is considered a miracle. All we do is cause that process to unfold. And when it does, it is as a miracle, as it is written, “I have labored and found.”[3] Finding is actually the miracle. On our way, everything always happens through miracles.

The Creator took the children of Israel for a “tour” in the desert out of fear of fighting the Philistines, so they went through Sinai. Why did He not take them straight to Israel?

The children of Israel walked in the desert forty years, but you can actually cross the desert in a week. We have such a big will to receive: wars with the Philistines, with Amalek, sins such as the golden calf and the sin of the spies, and many other problems just to get to the land of Israel, to the entrance. Additionally, there is the war to conquer the land.

It takes many wars to conquer the will to receive and turn it from an egoistic desire, Egypt, into a desire for the land of Israel. Eretz (land) means Ratzon (desire). We must aim our desire not to work in order to receive, which is Amalek, but in order to bestow, which is YasharEl (straight to God), Ysrael (Israel). It is a very long process in which miracles constantly occur.

Because the children of Israel are not yet strong enough. They have yet to acquire the force of bestowal that will enable them to fight and confront the Philistines. There is still no right line, the force of bestowal, so it is impossible to use the middle line an advance with it. When one has only the force of reception, the left line, one must bypass the Philistines.

From The Zohar: And Israel Saw the Great Hand

“And Israel saw the great hand … and they believed in the Lord.” But did they not believe in Creator thus far? After all, it is written, “And the people believed; and when they heard.” Moreover, they saw all the great deeds that the Creator did for them in Egypt. However, “And they believed” means that they believed in what he said, “And Moses said unto the people, ‘Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord.’”

Zoharfor All, BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent), item 203

At each stage we advance by degrees. Our way, as The Zohar writes, is 600 chosen chariots, six days and the seventh day, Sabbath, which corresponds to the end of correction, the seventh millennium. The road from the exodus from Egypt to the end of our correction goes through 125 degrees, with each degree dividing into additional degrees. There are miracles each time, and each time a person becomes more adhered to the upper force.

We are in between two forces: on the one hand there is the will to receive, which is the nature we are born with, as it is written, “the inclination of a man’s heart is evil from his youth” (Genesis, 8:21). On the other hand there is the desire to bestow to which we must come. On this ladder of our nature, the will to receive is at the bottom, and the Creator, the desire to bestow, is at the top, with us in the middle, as though hanging in midair. To the extent that the force of the Creator appears before us, we can rise until we achieve Dvekut (adhesion) with Him.

This is why we need only reveal the need, the necessity for the Creator. It is written, “And the children of Israel cried out from the work” (Exodus, 2:23). All the crying and quarrels are disclosures of our deficiency out of the sensation that we must receive help from above.

This is how we live by the mercy of the Creator. This is also how the upper light, the light that reforms, called Torah, appears and saves us. These are the Hassadim, the force of bestowal that appears to us. Even today we must understand that if we reveal the right deficiency, the force that will deliver us from all the troubles will appear, and we will cross the Red Sea on dry land.

So what has faith got to do with all of this? What does it mean that they saw the miracle and believed?

Faith is the force of bestowal, of Bina. Through the force of bestowal a person sees the world that surrounds us, the world of Ein Sof (infinity), the spiritual world, the degrees, and the forces. However, we still do not have the vision of bestowal, of connection with others. When we connect with others we develop new “spectacles” through which we see the entire world as circular, with only one force operating in it.

The wisdom of Kabbalah teaches us how to discover the force of the Creator that is operating in the world, the method of revealing His Godliness to His creations in this world.

It seems that the Creator continuously puts the people of Israel in predicaments, such as the bitter water, then delivers them out of it, such as turning it into fresh water. What does this process represent?

We need to understand that we can only discover things by seeing both sides, darkness as well as light, as “the advantage of the light out of darkness” (Ecclesiastes, 2:13). This is why we keep discovering that our ego is worse than we thought, and we seek a way out of it, understanding that the upper force must be involved.

When we become aware that we need the upper force and we cry out, the Creator appears. Each time, we have to come to such a state—revealing the deficiency, the need for the help of the Creator so He may appear. This is how we build our Kli (vessel), and this is why we eat the manna (MAN) in the desert. We are never the owners, the landlords; we only ask for the process to take place.

It is the same today in the process we are going through, and in the even harder processes ahead. After all, the purpose of the process is only to bring us to a state of no control, complete helplessness and despair, which obligates the upper force to appear because without it we will not be able to advance. The better we understand the process, this predilection, and the better we prepare ourselves for it, the more we will be able to draw the upper force before we are in a desperate state. This is why the Torah was given, the interior of the Torah, the wisdom of Kabbalah, so we will know each time how to prescribe the cure before the illness.

Today it is very difficult to make people understand that they have no control. We are accustomed to thinking that through science and technology we will control nature.

This is how it was until the outbreak of the crisis. Now we understand that we control nothing. We do not control the education system, our families, ourselves, terror, commerce, economy or finance, and these are signs of the comprehensive crisis, the systemic breakdown in which all systems are collapsing. We are reaching a state where we have no control and we need a special revelation of nature’s collective force.

We are built in such a way that each of us pulls toward his or her side, and the surfacing crisis proves that we are all tied together, dependent on each other, and only in that mutual dependence will we be able to resolve the problem. However, since we cannot establish a connection of Arvut (mutual guarantee), we will need the help of the upper force. It will take a long time before we understand that we need the force of unity, which is the Creator making peace between us, as it is written, “He who makes peace in His heaven, He will make peace on us and on all of Israel” (from the Kadish prayer).

What does the process of crossing the Red Sea represent?

When Malchut enters Bina there is upper water and there is lower water. Likewise, at the time of the creation of the world there is the upper force that comes and lets the will to receive enter the sea, the water, meaning connect the will to receive with the desire to bestow. The will to receive is the force of the ground. Israel that connects the force of the ground reveals the ground within the sea, while the sea itself if the giving force, where there are Gevurot, a stormy sea.

Israel reveals the special force, Nachshon, as well, who jumps first into the water. It is a force within us that is willing follow with complete dedication only to achieve the quality of bestowal, the connection with Bina, whatever happens. In this way, as we come out we make the first contact with the desire to bestow. The entire escape from Egypt is an escape from ourselves out to everyone, to connect with the others.

From The Zohar: And Pharaoh Drew Near

Israel were nearing the sea and saw the sea before them becoming stormier, its waves straightening upward. They were afraid. They raised their eyes and saw Pharaoh and his army, and slings and arrows, and they were terrified. “And the children of Israel cried out.” Who caused Israel to draw near to their father in heaven? It was Pharaoh, as it is written, “And Pharaoh drew near.”

Zoharfor All, BeShalach (When Pharaoh Sent), item 67

Each time, our ego wakes up and does not let us advance. In fact, it does the work for us because Pharaoh, the ego, is the posterior side of the Creator. He created the will to receive, and He constantly reveals itself to us until we see that it—the will to receive, the snake—is putting us to death, so we have to escape from it.

Today we are in similar situation. We are gradually learning that our ego is not letting us connect and build proper systems, live in families, nations, and states, to build the planet and the world as circular and connected, since this is what will prompt us toward correction. This is why we are living in a special time when we will truly have to determine that Arvut (mutual guarantee) is the connection between us.

Moses was instructed to write in a book that the memory of Amalek would be blotted out. What is a book in the spiritual sense?

A book is a disclosure. It is a disclosure that we have in the book of Torah, which describes the works of the Creator in relation to the creature. We act through these revelations, through the letters, which are written black over white in order to erase the intention of Amalek, meaning to make the will to receive in order to receive become a desire to receive in order to bestow. This is called Ratzon (desire), Eretz (land), and “in order to bestow” is like the Creator, when we reach YasharEl (straight to God), Ysrael (Israel).

In other words, Amalek is the opposite of the land of Israel. Amalek is a general term, much like Haman, snake, and Pharaoh, except it also contains smaller, specific parts. We learn that each time the people of Israel faces them. Every person is like the people of Israel—made of the qualities of bestowal that are placed under the will to receive.

In A Nutshell

In the portion, Bo (Come), the Creator—through Moses—tells defiant Pharaoh he must let the people of Israel go. The Creator casts two more plagues over Pharaoh, Locust and Darkness, and Pharaoh says to Moses, “Go away from me! Beware; do not see my face again for in the day you see my face you shall die” (Exodus, 10:28). Moses replies, “You are right; I shall never see your face again” (Exodus, 10:29). Indeed, Moses keeps his word.

The Creator tells Moses that after the final plague Pharaoh will let the children of Israel go. The children of Israel begin to prepare for the tenth plague, the plague of the first-born, and borrow from the Egyptians silver and gold vessels, as well as garments, preparing for their release.

The Creator outlines to Moses the rules of the Passover offering that the children of Israel will need to meet: slaughter a lamb in the twilight, spread its blood on the doorposts (Mezuzot) and on crossbars, and eat the lamb that same night together with Matzot (unleavened bread) and Maror (horse-radish). The children of Israel follow suit.

At midnight, when a great cry rises in Egypt at the strike of the Plague of the First-Born, Pharaoh urges the children of Israel to leave Egypt in haste. The children of Israel leave taking the mixed multitude along with them, and flocks and cattle in great numbers.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

The exodus from Egypt described in this portion is both very significant and dramatic. Each moment in our lives is a remembrance to the exodus from Egypt. This is the point at which the human in us is born, when we come out of our egos, of the will to receive.

We all begin selfish, as it is written, “I have created the evil inclination.”[1] The evil inclination grows within us and causes us to be increasingly egoistic. Throughout human history we have been developing in this manner until we have come to a state where we feel that our entire nature is evil and we must exit it, get rid of it, and so we look for a solution. It is a process that unfolds in both individuals and in the entire human society.

When the Pharaoh in us grows, meaning our evil inclination, it does not let us live. The point in the heart, Moses in us, escapes from the ego in order to gain strength, then returns in order to fight it. Only once we understand how this “game” unfolds in us do we return to fight against the ego, much like Moses returns to Egypt to fight against Pharaoh.

When a person begins to discover the upper force, even a little bit, he or she discovers that everything happens from above, that “there is none else besides Him” (Deuteronomy, 4:35), and that includes Pharaoh, the Creator, and Moses who is between them. In this struggle, our inner Moses must decide who will rule over him, Pharaoh or the Creator.

The Creator teaches Moses to face the ego, fight, and rise above it. He always sends Moses to Pharaoh because “I have hardened his heart” (Exodus, 10:1). If we know, through the wisdom of Kabbalah, how to draw the “light that reforms” [2] and pass through the ten Sephirot of our evil inclination, the ten plagues, the process will not be so hard. This process is called “hastening,” as opposed to the way, “in due time,” which is paved with torments, wars, and other unpleasant events.

The wisdom of Kabbalah is appearing in order to let us through the states easily and pleasantly. The first to experience them will be the people of Israel, followed by the rest of the world, as it is written, “They shall all know Me from the least of them to the greatest of them” (Jeremiah, 31:33), “For My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer’ for all the nations” (Isaiah, 56, 7). This is why everyone will face the exodus from Egypt, and the first to do it are the people of Israel because it is our task to be “a light for the nations” (Isaiah, 42:6).

The struggle against our ego, Pharaoh, who will not let us unite and achieve a state of “Love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah”[3] —by which we must connect in Arvut (mutual guarantee)—leads to the three final and hardest plagues. These plagues are the GAR of the degree, the first three: Locust, Darkness, and the Plague of the First Born.

In the final plague, when we feel how wicked is our evil inclination, how it detaches us from life, we detach ourselves from it. This is why Pharaoh warns Moses that if he should approach him even once more he will be put to death, since this inclination truly puts us to death.

Moses in us is ready for this plague because he knows that through it he will be born; he will come out of Egypt and rise to a level of connection among everyone, and find within him the quality of bestowal. He will attain the sensation of the next world, the sensation of eternity, perfection, and the upper force that resides in him.

When one attains perfection through this complicated process, that person makes a sacrifice. The Hebrew word sacrifice is Korban, from the word Karov (near). When we offer a sacrifice we draw closer to the quality of bestowal. The Passover offering expresses our efforts to reach the good inclination, which is above the quality of reception, above the evil inclination. We pass over the ego and approach the desire to bestow. That move is done with the Passover blood, similar to the birth-blood. We are born in blood, as it is written, “In your blood, live” (Ezekiel 16:6).

We advance this way until we reach the night of the exodus from Egypt. In that state we “borrow vessels from the Egyptians,” taking from them desires. Instead of the intentions to receive, we have only the intentions to bestow. We take the desire to receive along with the desire to bestow, and go out of Egypt with both. All that we leave in Egypt are the intentions to receive, which are the evil. That is, we take the inclination, but we leave the evil behind. Subsequently, we add to the inclination, the desire, the intention to bestow, thus making it a good inclination. This is why we entered Egypt to begin with—to bring out of the Egyptians the desires to receive, with which we were all born initially.

Afterward comes the Plague of the First-Born to all the Egyptians in us, to our entire evil inclination. This is the final blow, by which the light that reforms arrives and hands a final blow to the domination of the evil inclination over us. This is when we rise above it toward connection between us.

In that connection we begin to feel the exodus from Egypt, from the evil inclination, which was interfering with our connection, with being in the Assembly of Israel, which assembles us together. Only through connection between all of us do we discover the Creator, the upper light, the spiritual world, our perfection and eternity.

When we come out of Egypt there is a festive eating of the Passover offering with the evil. We come out with the bread, the bread of the poor, Matzot, and we are born anew when we rise above our egos, above the will to receive, and into the desire to bestow. Henceforth we will be ready for the spiritual ascent.

The first degree we attain upon the exodus from Egypt is the spiritual birth. This is the hardest transition, in which we cast away all the habits and customs by which we perceived reality, the world, and our relationships. In this transition, we rise above all the elements that built us, and by which we developed in our world. We move from there into a world that operates entirely on bestowal, on Arvut, on connection. It is truly an opposite world.

When we cross we begin to experience nature in the opposite manner, following the laws of bestowal instead of those of reception. We begin to act differently, follow different rules, and reality appears different than before. We continue to develop with the same Pharaoh we had left behind; we only took the vessels from him, as it is written, “afterward they shall come out with great substance” (Genesis, 15:14).

When we are surrounded by a society, studies, and the light that reforms that we draw, we draw in the forces that pull us out of Egypt. Therefore, even in very difficult situations we need not fear standing up to our egos.

Questions and Answers

When do we feel that we have come out of Egypt?

Only when we come out of Egypt. It happens suddenly, in the dark. We feel nothing before it happens; we are dazed, disoriented, just as in birth. We come out to a new life we do not know, and take only what we need—the desires that have no intentions to receive, without the bad intentions, called the “big vessels” that we take from Egypt. The children of Israel are the ones who take them, the ones who want to be YasharEl (straight to God), straight to bestowal, to love of others.

The exodus from Egypt happens at midnight. According to the wisdom of Kabbalah, this is when the building of the Kelim (vessels) begins toward the dawn. In that state we feel bad because of the darkness and the disorientation and confusion. We do not understand what is happening to us. But one point in us tells us, “Do it,” and we are willing to do it, following the preparation that does not let us remain in our egos—which are really putting us to death, so we get out and escape.

From The Zohar: A Lamb for a Household

“Israel did not come out of Egypt until the government of all their ministers was broken above.” This is called all of the ten Klipot (shells/peels), the ten plagues by which Egypt is broken. “And Israel departed their domain and came to the domain of the upper holiness,” called “bestowal,” “love of others, “in the Creator, and tied to Him … that, ‘I brought [them] out from the land of Egypt’; I have brought them out of the other authority and brought them into My authority.”

Zoharfor All, Bo (Come), item 165

The idea is to move from the intention to receive to the intention to bestow, from a state of constantly thinking of ourselves—how to profit, succeed, and exploit the whole world—to the opposite state. It is truly an internal revolution in a person who still does not understand there is another way to live—in bestowal, love, rising above the self—though there are constantly desires to receive within us.

During the forty years in the desert, the children of Israel experience events such as the golden calf and the division of the Red Sea. These events are not easier than the exodus from Egypt, but the exodus is the detachment from our ego.

Following the exit are descents and ascents, and our will to receive keeps showing more and more of itself. The children of Israel do not exit by themselves. Along with them come the mixed multitude: people who are drawn after them, who also want to reach an enlightened world, but without correcting their egos. They are willing to keep Torah and Mitzvot but without correcting the ego.

What is the difference between the exodus from Egypt for those with a point in the heart, and those without the point?

There is a big difference between them. Israel is called Li Rosh (I have a mind) because they do it consciously, being aware of what is happening to them. We perform these actions and experience these them on ourselves with the Creator. We draw the light that reforms, and this is called “working on Galgalta and Eynaim, as it is written, “And you will be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus, 9:6), meaning everyone in bestowal.

Conversely, those who do not need it—because they lack that type of connection to Godliness, the point in the heart—are called “the nations of the world.” They do not feel they must correct the evil in them, their egos, that they must rise and be in Dvekut (adhesion) with the Creator.

We are living in a very special time. The whole world is in crisis; everyone must be reborn, whether they want to or not.

True, but the rest of the world is pushed from behind through suffering. They do not, and will not have the pull from before. The rest of the world feels the necessity to get out of the troubles, while we, Israel, feel a necessity to draw toward bestowal, love of others, and through it achieve the love of the Creator. It is a fundamental difference. We are advancing through the positive force of bestowal, the pulling force, while the rest of the world is advancing through the pushing force that prods them. It is very different, which is why they cannot advance by themselves.

We must connect to them as Galgalta Eynaim toward the AHP, and pass on the bestowal to them through us. We must be their “light for the nations.” Although they will not understand what they are doing, they will connect to us, as Isaiah says, “And the peoples will take them along and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord” (Isaiah, 14:2). This is how they will be corrected.

The Plague of the First-Born stands opposite the Keter; it is the conclusion of all the plagues. With each plague, it is as if another slice of the intention to receive is cut off from the will to receive. The intention to receive is a Klipa that is sorted and separated, and the will to receive remains bare and unused.

Malchut, Yesod, Hod, Netzah, Tifferet, Gevura, Hesed, Bina, Hochma, and Keter correspond to the ten plagues. The plague corresponding Keter is the hardest because it is as the Rosh (head) in relation to the rest of the blow, and also because its Aviut (thickness, will to receive) is the biggest. Of the degrees of desire—root, 1, 2, 3, 4—Keter is the strongest egoistic desire.

This is how we detach from the ego and seemingly “kill” Pharaoh. Precisely so does the ego begin to understand that there really is existence in order to bestow, and it asks the children of Israel to bless it.

It is not simple because we still have not fully grasped all of it. In the end, “There is none else Him”; a single force of the Creator that everything. Pharaoh is an angel that seems to be against us, but it, too, is in the hands of the Creator; it is how they work together. For now, this is how our correction takes place in the right-and-left we work with. But afterward we will learn how to work with both, in three lines. We learn it in relation to the Masach deHirik, in the big corrections.

From The Zohar: And It Came to Pass at Midnight

Even “All the firstborn.” A firstborn is considered Hochma, and “All the firstborn” indicates that even the higher and lower degrees were broken from their dominion. All those degrees that rule by their power of Hochma, which is the wisdom of Egypt, as it is written, “All the first-born in the land of Egypt.”

Zoharfor All, Bo (Come), item 118

Our ego suffers each degree on the highest level. Our will to receive is in us, and nowhere else, not even in Egypt. Everything unfolds within because man is a small world. We are beginning to feel that the angel of death is destined to join, as it is written that the angel of death will be a holy angel. This is why Pharaoh asks for a blessing because he still cannot connect by himself. And yet, he understands that a new era has begun.

Today’s Egypt is also showing signs of it. There are the pyramids that the children of Israel built, and there are pyramids that the Egyptians built, and they are built completely differently.

In relation to the process within us, it seems like a split personality. Do we have within us the plagued Pharaoh on one side, and Moses delighting in the exodus on the other?

Yes, these two forces are within us. We usually feel them when we ascend or descend. When we are egoistic, or when we do not know what to do with our ego, when we are in the dark. Conversely, when we are elated, working in order to bestow, like the Creator, the light shines for us. A beginner is like Moses returning from Jethro: he already discovered the Creator, so now he is retuning with both forces.

Do we experience the two forces?

In a struggle, we experience both the force of Pharaoh and the force of Moses. We already know how to make the force of bestowal reign over the force of reception.

Is this why it was said, “Come to Pharaoh”?

Yes, and each time the Creator makes the will to receive heavier, harder. He increasingly opens up the will to receive within us, and we must overcome it and continue.

]]>http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/01/bo-come-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-6/feed/0http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/01/bo-come-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-6/VaEra (And I Appeared) Parsha – Weekly Torah Portionhttp://feedproxy.google.com/~r/KabbalahBlog/~3/Yn3O7WlRy-0/
http://www.kabbalahblog.info/2020/01/vaera-appeared-parsha-weekly-torah-portion-3/#respondSun, 19 Jan 2020 03:00:51 +0000http://www.kabbalahblog.info/?p=5984Exodus, 6:2-9:35 This Week’s Torah Portion | Jan 19 – Jan 25, 2020 – 22 Tevet – 28 Tevet, 5780 In A Nutshell In the portion, VaEra (And I Appeared), the Creator appears before Moses and promises to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Moses turns to the children of Israel but they do not listen “out […]

In A Nutshell

In the portion, VaEra (And I Appeared), the Creator appears before Moses and promises to deliver the children of Israel from Egypt to the land of Canaan. Moses turns to the children of Israel but they do not listen “out of impatience and out of hard work” (Exodus 6:9). The Creator instructs Moses to turn to Pharaoh and ask him to let the children of Israel go out of Egypt. Moses fears that he will not succeed in his mission and asks the Creator for a token. The Creator says to Moses that he will be as God to Pharaoh, while Aaron will be as the prophet who does the actual speaking, and the Creator will harden Pharaoh’s heart and shower plenty of signs and tokens over Egypt. The Creator gives to Moses and Aaron a staff, and when Moses casts the staff to the ground it becomes a snake. When Moses and Aaron come to Pharaoh, Moses is eighty years old and Aaron is eighty-three. There are many magicians and soothsayers around Pharaoh. When Moses and Aaron arrive, they throw down the staff and it becomes a snake. Pharaoh’s magicians do the same and their staffs turn to snakes, as well, but Moses’ and Aaron’s snake swallows the magicians’ snakes. Despite that display, Pharaoh remains defiant. This is when the ten plagues of Egypt begin. This portion mentions seven of the plagues: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, and hail. After each plague Pharaoh goes back on his word and refuses to let the children of Israel go.

Commentary by Dr. Michael Laitman

While this depiction is graphic and picturesque, it actually conveys the interior of the Torah, the true law that instructs us how to get out of the Egypt within us. The Torah does not tell us to leave one physical place in favor of another, but rather how we can free ourselves of our egos.

The portion deals with a person who is working hard and discovers that he or she is in Egypt. It also deals with that person’s desire that does not agree with being in Egypt, the ego, the essence of evil. Therefore, that person escapes from there while arguing with one’s ego. Such a person cannot tolerate the ego, fearing it might bury or kill him. Therefore, that person rises above it and begins to part from it.

There are two forces in us. The first is the ego, which is Pharaoh and all of Egypt. The other is a “protruding” point called “the point in the heart.” All our desires that are in Egypt and are fed by it while there is a “famine in the land of Canaan” (Genesis, 42:6) create an internal struggle in us. This is the war from which we seek to escape, to rise above the ego with all our desires. In fact, only Moses, the point in the heart, escapes and rises above the ego, fleeing from Egypt to Jethro and to all that there is in Midian.

After forty years, during which we grow stronger in Midian working on enhancing the force of Moses, the Creator appears to us in the burning bush. Through our inner voice we hear and comprehend that we must return, fight against our ego, and get out of it, or we will not be able to attain spirituality.Spirituality is attained only by correcting our desires, by correcting our intentions from aiming to receive—the egoistic form—into aiming to give, to love of others. We have to achieve the rule, “love your neighbor as yourself; it is a great rule in the Torah.” The point in the heart, the Moses in us, feels it is time to do it. We hear the voice of the Creator and begin to work with our egoistic desires by facing up to Pharaoh.

In that state we are completely bewildered. It is very difficult for us to stand up to our nature. Nature and the world are literally grabbing us down by our feet by showing us how impossible it is because wherever we turn, we are surrounded by our egos. These are Pharaoh’s soothsayers, his sages, beginning to discover how unrealistic is the spiritual path of rising above our ego and achieving love of others. Indeed, where do we find love others in the world? Does anyone support it? The Israel in us is a very weak force. Although it seems we can do anything through our spirituality, we can also do it, and even more successfully, through the forces of the ego.

Sometimes we prove to ourselves that we rise through the group we are building, through the good and right environment we are in. Just as Pharaoh agrees to let the children of Israel go but changes his mind and captures them, we go through ups and downs that prevent us from exiting our egos. We experience seven blows that cleanse and correct us. These are the ZAT of the degree, the seven bottom Sephirot – Hesed, Gevura, Tifferet, Netzah, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut—corresponding to the seven plagues of Egypt: blood, frogs, lice, flies, pestilence, boils, and hail.

The last three plagues are like the GAR of the degree; the first three belong to the Rosh (head), not to the Guf (body) of the degree. One who goes through them becomes liberated.

In our inner work we face tough struggles, scrutinies between the ego and the point in the heart, which draws us toward freedom, bestowal, through what Baal HaSulam calls in the essays, Arvut (“Mutual Guarantee”) and Matan Torah (“The Giving of the Torah”), “from the love of man to the love of God.” This is how we emerge from our nature into the nature of the Creator.

There are only two forces in existence: the force of bestowal and the force of reception. We are immersed in the force of reception, which puts us to death, makes our lives bitter, limited, and shortens them until we have no clue as to what life is for.

Spirituality provides an answer to the question regarding the suffering in our world. We come to spirituality because of the questions, “What is the meaning of my life?”, “What is life for?” In spirituality, we constantly scrutinize these questions and through them emerge to the eternal and enlightened world. We do that despite the ego’s grip on us, which does not let go and pulls us “by our feet” back in, not letting us escape.

Kabbalah books discuss these struggles at length. This is our inner work, the reason why we study the wisdom. The light that reforms that we obtain helps us through the plagues, from one plague to the next, from below upward, toward even greater blows. The more we advance, the harder the work and the tougher the blows.

Although we feel how the evil force in us is killing us and destroying us, keeping us on the animal level, we cannot rid ourselves of it. Finally, we come to a state where we feel that unless we run now, with the help of the upper force, being saved from above, w will remain in the eng because we cannot run alone. The Creator deliberately makes it difficult for us, as it is written, “Come on to Pharaoh” (Exodus 7:26) “for I have hardened his heart” (Exodus 10:1).

The Creator purposely hardens Pharaoh’s heart, our ego—the heart with all of our desires—so we would need His strength, so we would increasingly feel how we need Him and how we cling to Him so He will deliver us from Egypt.

As said above, there are only two forces in reality: the bad force, Pharaoh, and the Creator’s force, and it depends on us to which we cling. Through the war between the forces, we learn that we have no alternative but to achieve Dvekut (adhesion) through the force of the Creator. This is how we exit Egypt.

Right from the start we see that Moses comes to the people of Israel and tells them that the Creator has appeared before him, and this is why he is suggesting that they come out of Egypt. They refuse; they do not want to listen.

The refusal may strike us as odd because it would seem reasonable that the people of Israel should want to get out of Egypt. However, we should keep in mind that this is the people of Israel in exile, under Pharaoh’s rule. Had the people of Israel been in Canaan, matters would have been quite different. But in Canaan there were problems, too. There were quarrels and hunger because the will to receive was growing and could not be used anymore. This is why it is said that there was “hunger” there. Therefore, to use the desire, the people of Israel had to go down to Egypt, since only by adding the ego could they come out of Egypt with the qualities of Israel in us, the YasharEl (straight to God).

We must come out with the egoistic desire we had had, and with which we discover the spiritual world. We have nothing but our natural essence. Following the ruin, the shattering, the sin of the tree of knowledge and the rest of the sins, our nature was completely ruined. It is completely shattered, much like the world today, which is gradually discovering the crisis we are in. This is the beginning of the egoistic system that lies between us.

The children of Israel had to go down to Egypt to revive their souls. Yet, for now they are still as Joseph, as the children of Israel. They lived detached from the egoistic desires until they began to mingle with the ego. It is specifically those who study the wisdom of Kabbalah—who do what is written in the essays and follow the advice of Kabbalists in order to discover the spiritual world—who feel increasingly lower, as they strive to ascend. This state is called “the children of Israel in Egypt.”

The children of Israel had to be in Egypt four hundred years, as Abraham was told. The four hundred years are four degrees from the root—1, 2, 3, 4—or Yod–Hey–Vav–Hey, that we must be in exile in order to reveal the entire Kli (vessel) and achieve redemption with it, in a corrected Kli. In other words, all our souls will connect and discover in that connection the upper light, the Creator. This is how the soul unites with the upper force, with the light; this is the complete redemption.

First, we must mingle with our four levels of Aviut (will to receive, egoism). We spent only 210 years in Egypt, so there are additional exiles after Egypt until the measure of four hundred years is full. These days we are standing at the conclusion of that period.

It is necessary to go down to Egypt and absorb these four hundred degrees, which are like four hundred shekels of silver, the price for which the Cave of Machpelah was sold. It is a special measure of our ego, which Pharaoh symbolizes in a broken manner in the corrected soul. In the end, we bring out these Kelim (vessels) from Egypt because we come out with great substance, correct them, and discover in them the land of Israel.

Why does the Creator want us out of Egypt, on the one hand, and on the other hand hardens Pharaoh’s heart, making it more difficult for the children of Israel? We see that when people come to study Kabbalah they arrive with a great desire to learn, then feel how difficult it is, and do not succeed. They begin to “fall asleep.” Their ego grows, they yield to it and sink in it. They cannot understand that what has happened to them is that they entered Egypt. We need to keep working even when we are drowning in the ego; we must not agree to stay in it. There are also those who detach themselves from corrections and from the wisdom of Kabbalah altogether. They flow with life, perhaps with some new habits. But if one continues, goes through the great shattering, the inner blows, until one feels that it is necessary to get out of Egypt, as it is written, “And the children of Israel sighed from the work” (Exodus, 2:23), and yells inside for the upper force to pull one out, that person will come out.

The wisdom of Kabbalah deals with facts, natural laws, and the children of Israel are shown tokens such as a staff that turns into a snake. Does that symbolize something supernatural? It is an inner state we often experience. The staff becoming a snake represents incidents where spirituality and perfection appear before us. We feel that we truly understand and attain something of the quality of bestowal, we are ready to connect with others and be with them in mind and heart, “as one man with one heart,” but soon after comes the descent, like a black cloud descending on a person. In much the same way the staff and the snake alternate.

So can it be said that one’s attitude toward spirituality called a “staff” or a “snake”? Yes, this is how we are tossed around.

How did Egypt’s magicians do the same as Moses with their staffs? Our ego causes us these things to show us who is right. Just as is written in the story of Ester, when they did not know who was right, we have to decide above reason. We do not want to go out of Egypt so as to gain, but we also do not want to stay in Egypt so as to gain. That is, it comes neither from the side of reception nor from the side of bestowal. Everyone would like to connect to spirituality and attain the spiritual world so as to have everything. However, we are made to understand that in both reception and bestowal we will have no personal gain in the ego. When we advance, like the magicians of Egypt, we advance toward the Klipa (shell/peel), into bestowing in order to receive, to take for ourselves the next world, too. But bestowal means that we rise above any reward whatsoever.

What does it mean that Moses’ and Aaron’s snake swallows the snakes of the Egyptian magicians? It means that in the end we have to go with faith above reason. This is called a “staff,” and with it we go up instead of down in the importance of bestowal, descending to the vessels of reception.

Do we all experience these blows, each of us, even now? The Torah speaks of everything that happens to a person studying the wisdom of Kabbalah. The crisis that the world is in today is preparing us to understand that we have no alternatives; we must advance. Except for the children of Israel, the world will not advance according to the steps we learn in the Torah. The world advances by joining the children of Israel, as it is written, “And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord” (Isaiah, 14:2). The whole world will need to support it.

What do we need to do in order to come out Egypt now? No, the Torah tells us that as long as we have not suffered all the blows, we cannot cry out so hard that the Creator will save us. When that happens, the upper force, the light that reforms, will influence us so strongly that we will be able to detach from the ego. From The Zohar: I Will Bring, I Will Deliver, I Will Redeem, I Will Take The Creator wished to first tell them the most beautiful—the exodus from Egypt. The most beautiful of all is, “And I will take you to Me for a people, and I will be to you a God.” But He told them this afterwards. At the time, there was nothing more beautiful for them than exiting because they thought that they would never come out of their slavery, since they saw that all the prisoners among them were tied by magic ties that they could never exit. This is why they were first told what they favored most.

Zoharfor All, VaEra (And I Appeared), items 52-3

It is the work of the Creator. We are not the ones doing the work, and it is not the work that the Creator does when correcting us. Rather, it is the work that the Creator does “behind the scenes.” It is the back of the neck. That is, hardening Pharaoh’s heart is the work that the Creator does so we will need Him.

Is this when we want to go out of Egypt? This is when we want to go out of Egypt, and it is also when we define that exit correctly. If you ask an ordinary person, “Why are you praying?” “What is redemption?” “What or who is the Messiah?” you will hear many answers. We all have our own Messiahs. But here we are talking about a person who needs to attain a state of Messiah, which brings one into love of others, a state of “love your neighbor as yourself,” the rule that includes all of us, since we must all be mutually contained in it, in mutual guarantee. This is why mutual guarantee is so important to us; it is as exodus from Egypt, as redemption. As long as there is no mutual guarantee, there will be no redemption. This is why we all need to work to bring it, to explain to everyone that the closer we come to this ideal, the greater our chances of exiting Egypt soon.